SAN ANGELO, TX — In Case You Missed It:Congressman August Pfluger (TX-11) was joined by fellow West Texan and House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX-19) at this year's West Texas Legislative Summit to give a behind-the-scenes look at the One Big Beautiful Bill President Trump signed into law on July 4th.
During their fireside discussion, Reps. Pfluger and Arrington highlighted several of the key provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill that will directly benefit Texas taxpayers, families, and businesses. Some of the provisions include reimbursing the state of Texas for the border crisis, making the Trump tax cuts permanent, replenishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, strengthening the farm safety net, investing in our military and border security, and supporting rural hospitals.
Watch their full conversation HERE or by clicking the image below.
You can read about their fireside chat in San Angelo Live HERE or by clicking the image below:
Republican Representatives Jodey Arrington and August Pfluger hailed the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB) as a pivotal piece of legislation that averted economic pitfalls while bolstering American strength in a discussion at the 2025 West Texas Legislative Summit. The bill, passed July 4, 2025, amid a razor-thin Republican majority in Congress, embeds key elements of the Farm Bill, makes permanent the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and delivers substantial spending cuts and border security funding.
Arrington, the Lubbock-area congressman and Chairman of the House Budget Committee, described the OBBB's passage as a "yearlong journey" and an "arduous process" requiring Republicans to "thread the needle to build consensus." He emphasized that the bill incorporates what he called the "best Farm Bill" provisions, addressing a critical gap after the standalone Farm Bill failed to pass in 2024.
You can also read highlights of the conversation below:
Rep. Pfluger on $13.5 Billion to Reimburse the State of Texas for the Border Crisis:
"It's not going to surprise anybody in this room to know that, over the past four years, with the surge of illegal immigration that came into Texas, the Governor had to send the National Guard to the border. We had Operation Stonegarden, which involved sheriff's departments from all over the state of Texas that had to go fill in at the southern border to do what the federal government should have been doing.
Folks, we got almost twelve billion dollars from the President, directly to the state of Texas as a reimbursement and an acknowledgement for all of the things that the state of Texas has done over the past four years."
Rep. Arrington on Making the Trump Tax Cuts Permanent:
"And this one is better. It's supercharged for the economy, for growth, for bringing down inflation and interest rates, because we make the tax cuts permanent. We needed comparable tax treatment for small businesses, and we got a corporate rate at 21%. We had record corporate revenues as a result.”
Rep. Pfluger on Replenishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve:
"Anybody heard of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? That thing that was depleted from 2021 to 2024? Well, half of it was gone—350 million barrels for political expediency, a political emergency—not for a hurricane, not for a national security issue, but for a political emergency. So this bill is putting millions of dollars back into the SPR to rebuild the caverns, to refill the actual product. It doesn't do all of it, but that's part of this bill. This is what we need to be thinking about. What's that next emergency where we need oil and gas to play a role and have it."
"$60 billion is included to strengthen the safety net, that's ARC [Agricultural Risk Policy] and PLC [Price Loss Coverage]. For some of the ag policy nerds, it's billions in crop insurance enhancements. Basically, we just make the risk management tools relevant to the current economy, so that we can do what benefits every American. Stabilize the ag economy, stabilize the ag economy. Because what we don't want to happen, ladies and gentlemen, and you don't have to be from San Angelo or Plainview, Texas, to figure this out, we don't want to depend on other countries to feed us."
"By the way, it also protects rural health care. It also protects our rural facilities here in West Texas, our community health centers, our hospitals, the clinics, the nurses and the technicians, those that are giving us that health care, which is hard to get people in some of these small towns, it's very difficult. You all know that much better than I do. This big, beautiful bill protects those small towns in a way that, while saving money that we never could have gotten to without the leadership of Jodey.”
