On July 1, 2025, Pete Ricketts cast one of the 50 votes that passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, whose tax and spending changes the Congressional Budget Office estimates leave the lowest-income tenth of households worse off while the top tenth gains, and which adds trillions of dollars to the national debt. In the votes before passage, the Nebraska senator voted against requiring the bill not to add to the deficit, against restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit and against a top tax rate that would have paid for more rural hospital money.
Ricketts has called the law "a generational bill." In Nebraska, ITEP estimates the richest 1 percent receive the largest average tax cuts, and the state's own Department of Revenue projects the law will cost Nebraska's budget more than $406 million over four years.
Pete Ricketts's Votes and Statements on Taxes and the Deficit
- Ricketts Cast a Deciding Vote for a Tax Law That Gives the Top Tenth $13,600 a Year and Costs the Lowest Tenth $1,200, in July 2025. On July 1, 2025, Pete Ricketts voted yes on Senate passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed 50 to 50 with the Vice President breaking the tie, so the bill would have failed without his vote. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the law will cost the lowest-income tenth of households an average of $1,200 a year, mainly through its Medicaid and SNAP cuts, while the top tenth gain $13,600 a year.
- Ricketts Voted to Score the Tax-Cut Extension as Costing Nothing in June 2025. On June 30, 2025, Ricketts voted yes to sustain the chair's ruling that the chair must rely on determinations made by the Budget Committee, which let the committee chairman use a "current policy" baseline under which extending the 2017 tax cuts was scored as costing nothing. The ruling was sustained 53 to 47. Brookings calls the maneuver a fundamental break with 50 years of budget rules, and reports the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the law's deficit increase, with interest, as a total of $4.1 trillion.
- Ricketts Voted Against Requiring the Bill Not to Add to the Deficit in June 2025. On June 30, 2025, Ricketts voted no on Senator Alex Padilla's motion to make the bill "not increase the deficit" over 2025-2034 against current law. It failed 47 to 53. The Congressional Budget Office's February 2026 update estimates the law will add $4.2 trillion to the national debt through 2034 and $4.7 trillion through 2035, counting interest and economic effects.
- Ricketts Voted Against Restoring the Expanded Child Tax Credit in July 2025. On July 1, 2025, Ricketts voted no on Senator Michael Bennet's motion to raise the Child Tax Credit to "match levels of the expanded Child Tax Credit," paid for by corporations and the wealthy. It failed 47 to 53. The law instead raised the credit to $2,200 and denied it to families unless a parent and the child have Social Security numbers. Brookings found 17 million children were in low-income families that received less than the full credit or no credit at all and thus would not benefit from the increase.
- Ricketts Voted Against a Top Tax Rate That Would Have Added $25 Billion for Rural Hospitals in July 2025. On July 1, 2025, Ricketts voted no on waiving the budget rules for an amendment to apply a 39.6 percent individual income tax rate to the highest incomes and add $25 billion to the law's rural health fund (Congressional Record). It failed 22 to 78. KFF estimates rural areas lose $137 billion in federal Medicaid funds over ten years under the law.
- Ricketts Voted Against Barring Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Paid for by Medicaid and Food Aid Cuts in February 2025. On February 20, 2025, Ricketts voted no on waiving the budget rules for Senator Chuck Schumer's amendment "to prevent tax cuts for the wealthy if a single dollar of Medicaid funding is cut," which failed 49 to 51, and no on Senator Amy Klobuchar's amendment to stop tax cuts for the ultra-rich while families struggle to afford food, which lost 48 to 52. The same night he voted no on waiving the budget rules for Schumer's amendment "to prevent unwarranted tax cuts for the ultra-rich," which failed 47 to 52. ITEP estimates the law gives the richest 1 percent $1 trillion in tax cuts over a decade while cutting Medicaid by almost as much, and that more than 70 percent of the net tax cuts will go to the richest fifth in 2026.
- Ricketts Voted Against Middle-Class Tax Relief and a Limit on Record Debt in April 2025. On April 5, 2025, Ricketts voted no on Senator Jacky Rosen's amendment to provide tax relief for the middle class, which failed 47 to 52. On April 4 he voted no on Senator Jeff Merkley's point of order against legislation creating more debt over 30 years than the country accumulated in its first 249 years, which lost 46 to 53. The Congressional Budget Office projects federal interest costs will rise from $970 billion in 2025 to $2.1 trillion by 2036, a path that reflects the law along with tariffs and other changes.
- Ricketts Voted for the Budget Resolution That Allowed $1.5 Trillion in Deficit-Financed Tax Cuts in April 2025. On April 5, 2025, Ricketts voted yes on H.Con.Res. 14, which allowed the Senate Finance Committee to add up to $1.5 trillion to deficits and raised the debt limit by up to $5 trillion. It passed 51 to 48. That budget resolution is the one the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was passed under.
- Ricketts Voted Against Returning Unspent Immigration-Enforcement Money to Cut the Deficit in June 2026. On June 5, 2026, Ricketts voted no on Senator Gary Peters's amendment to rescind unspent immigration-enforcement balances from the law and transfer them to the Treasury "to reduce the deficit." It failed 46 to 53. The money stayed with the enforcement agencies while the law's deficit cost grew in the Congressional Budget Office's February 2026 update.
- Ricketts Called the Tax Law a Generational Bill in April 2026. In an April 24, 2026 column, Ricketts wrote of the law: "I've said before that this is a generational bill." In the same column he wrote that it "prevented an average $2,400 tax increase on Nebraskans." A year earlier, he wrote that "I voted to pass a budget resolution" that would "help prevent a $4 trillion tax increase." ITEP estimates the law's tax changes raise taxes on the poorest fifth of Americans slightly in 2026 compared with extending prior law, before counting its Medicaid and SNAP cuts, and the Congressional Budget Office counts $4.2 trillion in added debt through 2034.
What the Tax Law Pete Ricketts Voted For Means for Nebraska
- Tax cuts at the top. ITEP estimates the richest 1 percent of Nebraskans receive $0.91 billion in net tax cuts from the law in 2026, an average of $91,480 each, while the poorest fifth of Nebraskans see a tax increase of 1.4 percent of income from its tax changes.
- State budget. Nebraska's Department of Revenue projects the law's federal tax changes will cost the state more than $406 million over four years, about $216 million in the current two-year budget, and found that the largest impacts to Nebraska come in corporate income tax revenues.
- What Nebraska gives up. Over ten years, the law cuts federal Medicaid funding for Nebraska by about $3.2 billion, by KFF's allocation of the Congressional Budget Office estimate.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pete Ricketts on Taxes and the deficit
What is Pete Ricketts's record on taxes and the deficit under Trump?
Pete Ricketts voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 1, 2025 and, before passage, voted against requiring it not to add to the deficit, against restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit, and to let the Budget Committee score the extended 2017 tax cuts as costing nothing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the law adds trillions to the debt, and Ricketts has called it a generational bill.
Did Pete Ricketts vote for tax cuts for the rich?
Pete Ricketts voted for the law that ITEP estimates gives the richest 1 percent $117 billion in net tax cuts in 2026, more than the bottom 60 percent combined, and before that voted against three amendments in February 2025 to block tax cuts for the wealthy while Medicaid and food aid were cut. On July 1, 2025 he also voted against a 39.6 percent top rate that would have paid for more rural hospital money.
How much does the tax law Pete Ricketts voted for add to the national debt?
The law Pete Ricketts voted for adds $4.2 trillion to the debt through 2034 in the Congressional Budget Office's February 2026 estimate, counting interest and economic effects. Brookings and the Tax Policy Center write that the money spent in the law would have been sufficient to resolve Social Security's long-term financing problem.
Last updated: 2026-10-25