On Wednesday, August 26, 2026, Josh Brecheen stood in front of constituents at the Donald W. Reynolds Community Center in Poteau, Oklahoma, and defended President Trump's tariffs.

Brecheen acknowledged that some people say the tariffs are hurting them. He said he had checked.

"I went to the National Tax Foundation and asked them if the tariff I'm paying per tax filers or the boost that I got from the tax relief — you know, you were going to have a 22 percent tax increase if not for the One Big Beautiful Bill, what they did in 2017 wasn't permanent. He said you are $1,700 per year better off."

That is the whole answer to "the tariffs are hurting me": a number, attributed to a think tank, that says you are actually ahead.

Six days before Brecheen said that, the Tax Foundation updated the tracker where it publishes its actual tariff numbers. Here is what it says.

The Tax Foundation's own numbers

The Tax Foundation's running analysis of Trump's tariffs, last updated August 20, 2026, estimates that the tariffs amount to an average tax increase of:

• $1,000 per U.S. household in 2025
• $840 per U.S. household in 2026

The same analysis estimates the tariffs will reduce long-run GDP by 0.4 percent and cut hours worked by the equivalent of 345,000 full-time jobs.

Now go looking for the number Brecheen says he was handed. The Tax Foundation keeps the two sides of that ledger apart. Its Oklahoma estimate for the One Big Beautiful Bill is an average tax cut of $3,106 per filer in 2026 — a gross figure, with no tariff taken out of it. Its tariff estimate is the $840 above. Neither number is $1,700, and neither document nets one against the other. And that is before anyone in Poteau counts a lost job, a higher grocery bill, or a farm input that costs more than it did.

Brecheen presented the $1,700 as the answer after the tariff was accounted for — "the tariff I'm paying" versus "the boost that I got," and the boost wins by $1,700. The Tax Foundation's published figures do not support that.

What is actually happening to Oklahoma right now

Four days before that town hall, on August 22, the 50 percent tariffs Trump had ordered in July on about $20 billion of Canadian goods took effect. Canada answered the same morning: Mark Carney said his government would match them "dollar for dollar", with tariffs on U.S. steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics starting September 8.

Oklahoma's second district is farm and ranch country. Dairy and agricultural equipment are on Carney's list, and Oklahoma producers have already spent a year and a half absorbing the cost of the last round.

Brecheen also told the room, "I don't believe in protectionism for protectionism's sake," and said he believes in tariffs because "what tariffs do is when you don't have subsidies, they keep you onshoring manufacturing." That is the argument. It is a real argument, and reasonable people make it. But it is an argument about a benefit that arrives later, paid for with a cost that arrives now — and the person paying is the family asking why things cost more.

Congress has barely voted on any of it

The most revealing exchange at the town hall was not about the money. Someone asked Brecheen what votes Congress has actually taken on the tariffs.

He could recall one, from last year. "I wasn't with Tom McClintock on that," he said — McClintock being the California Republican who has opposed the tariffs.

Then he said he did not know of any House votes on tariffs coming up.

That is the state of it. The tariffs are a tax increase the Tax Foundation ranks among the 20 largest as a share of GDP since 1940, they were imposed by executive action rather than by Congress, and the member of Congress they elected to write tax law says there is nothing on the schedule. Republicans in the House have used procedural votes to keep tariff resolutions from reaching the floor at all — and Colorado's Gabe Evans toured businesses hurt by tariffs and then cast the 216–214 procedural vote that stopped the House from voting on them.

Brecheen has a habit of this shape. In July he drew a public red line and then voted two days later for the exact thing he had called worthless.

Who in his district is already squeezed

About 694,200 Oklahomans rely on SNAP every month — roughly 16.8 percent of the state, one of the highest rates in the country. A June 2025 Kaiser Family Foundation estimate, cited by the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, put 174,000 Oklahomans at risk of losing SoonerCare coverage under the budget bill Brecheen invoked at that town hall.

These are the households for whom $840 a year is not a rounding error. Brecheen told them a number that made the problem disappear.

What the numbers show

At an August 26 town hall in Poteau, Josh Brecheen acknowledged that some people say tariffs are hurting them, then said the Tax Foundation had told him they were "$1,700 per year better off." The Tax Foundation's published analysis, updated six days earlier, says Trump's tariffs are a tax increase averaging $840 per household in 2026 and $1,000 in 2025, and will cut hours worked by the equivalent of 345,000 full-time jobs. No Tax Foundation figure matches the $1,700: its Oklahoma estimate for the tax law is an average cut of $3,106 per filer in 2026, gross of tariffs, and it nets nothing against the tariff bill. Asked what Congress has voted on tariffs, he named one vote from last year and said he knew of nothing coming.

Source

Brecheen gives support for tariffs, but votes are scarce on tariffs — Tom Firme, Poteau Daily News, August 29, 2026. Photo: Josh Brecheen at the Poteau town hall, August 26, 2026 (Tom Firme / Poteau Daily News).