LaHood addresses taxes, Medicaid concerns at Grundy County legislative breakfast

The Grundy County Economic Development Commission hosted its annual Legislative Breakfast on Monday morning, where local legislators were able to answer questions from the business community.

Nancy Norton, president and CEO of the GCEDC, divided the questions between federal and state questions, and led the breakfast with a question to U.S. Rep. Darin Lahood, R-Dunlap, about the Tax Cut and Jobs Act.

“If we’ve heard one thing from businesses, it’s that they feel very, very over-regulated,” Norton said. “How will this act address that issue?”

Norton said that people are concerned the act will be so costly that it will affect Medicare and Medicaid.

LaHood said the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017 was a revamping of the federal tax code for the first time in 30 years, and it created what he called the best economy of his lifetime because it brought down tax rates for people, small- and medium-sized businesses, and working families.

The current attempt to pass a reconciliation bill seeks to make the cuts from that act permanent.

“My approach is that you take a scalpel and not a sledgehammer approach,” LaHood said. “We rely on Medicaid in the state of Illinois, about 3.4 million people. But what I said is, if we have able-bodied adults that we can move off Medicaid, we ought to do that.”

There are 3.4 million people on Medicaid in Illinois, according to Illinois.gov, and LaHood said that there are 7 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. right now. He believes the government can save money by getting Medicaid recipients into those jobs.

He said Congress also is looking at reforming the Inflation Reduction Act.

“I have six nuclear plants that touch my district, a lot of energy from solar and wind,” LaHood said. “We want to make sure we don’t completely eliminate those. It has to be a proper wind-down to allow our energy sector that we benefit from here in Grundy County and across the northern part of my district to make sure that it continues to thrive and prosper moving forward.”

LaHood said he believes the reconciliation bill will have a vote in Congress by Memorial Day.