Trump Tax Cuts Result in Money Back From Electric Company and No Rate Hikes for Three Years

Senator Heidi Heitkamp voted against the Trump tax cuts arguing they wouldn’t be all that beneficial for the economy. Back during her 2012 campaign she called for higher taxes. During the 2016 election cycle Heitkamp campaigned hard for Hillary Clinton who said that President Trump’s policies “would throw us into a recession.”

But right now the economy is very, very strong thanks in no small part to the Trump tax cuts. North Dakotans, in fact, saw the largest average tax reduction in the nation from that policy initiative, and the benefits keep coming.

Yesterday the Public Service Commission proposed a settlement agreement with Xcel Energy which would see the company giving an average, one-time refund to its roughly 95,000 North Dakota customers. The agreement also “prohibits Xcel from increasing electric rates before 2021 in lieu of additional refunds from the tax cuts.”

That’s a bigger deal than you might think. Not only are we talking about a $4.37 million infusion into the state’s economy, but also stable energy rates for roughly three years from the state’s largest electrical utility.

Senator Heitkamp and her fellow Democrats have worked very hard to try and justify her vote against the Trump tax cuts, but now with the benefit of hindsight we can say that those justifications were wrong.