{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-republicans-are-keeping-our-promises-and-delivering-for-working-families/", "Thune: Republicans Are Keeping Our Promises and Delivering for Working Families", "2026-09-14", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cMadam President, it\u2019s hard to believe that we\u2019re in the last few months of the 119th Congress.\n\n\u201cTwo years ago at this time, Democrats were still in charge, and the country was dealing with the two defining legacies of the Biden administration: a historic inflation crisis, and a historic immigration crisis.\n\n\u201cAnd I don\u2019t use the word historic lightly.\n\n\u201cBut those two crises were truly historic.\n\n\u201cDemocrats presided over the worst inflation crisis in 40 years \u2013 with inflation reaching 7, 8, and 9 percent.\n\n\u201cAnd they presided over four straight years \u2013 four straight years \u2013 of record-breaking \u2013 record-breaking \u2013 illegal immigration.\n\n\u201cRepublicans\u2019 priority when we came into office was dealing with the effects of these crises.\n\n\u201cAnd that started with preventing a massive tax hike on hardworking Americans.\n\n\u201cAs everyone knows, during the first Trump administration Republicans passed a historic reform of our tax code.\n\n\u201cWe cut tax rates across the board, doubled the child tax credit, and nearly doubled the standard deduction.\n\n\u201cBut that tax relief was scheduled to expire at the end of 2025.\n\n\u201cThe standard deduction \u2013 which is claimed by 90 percent of Americans on their taxes \u2013 would have shrunk, increasing the amount of Americans\u2019 income the government could tax.\n\n\u201cTax rates would have increased.\n\n\u201cThe child tax credit would have been reduced by 50 percent.\n\n\u201cFor a typical family in my state, that would have meant sending an additional $2,500 a year to Washington.\n\n\u201cWell, Republicans were not going to let that happen.\n\n\u201cAnd so in 2025, we passed the Working Families Tax Cuts \u2013 sometimes known as the One Big Beautiful Bill \u2013 to prevent this massive tax hike on hardworking Americans.\n\n\u201cWe made the increased standard deduction permanent.\n\n\u201cWe made the lower tax rates permanent.\n\n\u201cAnd we made the increased child tax credit permanent.\n\n\u201cIn other words, more money in American families\u2019 pockets, permanently.\n\n\u201cBut we didn\u2019t stop there.\n\n\u201cWe were well aware that Americans had had a very rough time financially under the Biden administration.\n\n\u201cAnd so we took action to put additional money in hardworking Americans\u2019 pockets.\n\n\u201cIn 2017, we had doubled the child tax credit.\n\n\u201cIn 2025, we not only made that increase permanent, we boosted the child tax credit even further, and indexed it to inflation so its value will never go down.\n\n\u201cWe also implemented no tax on tips and no tax on overtime \u2013 substantially lowering the tax bills of millions of hardworking Americans, from Uber and Lyft drivers to hairdressers to police officers.\n\n\u201cAnd we added a new bonus deduction for seniors, making retirement more affordable for millions of older Americans.\n\n\u201cAnd our efforts to help Americans keep more of their hard-earned money didn\u2019t stop with the Working Families Tax Cuts.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve also spent this Congress cutting burdensome regulations that would have driven up prices for hardworking Americans \u2013 from the California electric vehicle mandate, which would have forced Americans into costly electric cars, to regulations that would have driven up the cost of appliances.\n\n\u201cWe passed landmark housing legislation in June to help keep hardworking Americans from being priced out of the housing market.\n\n\u201cAnd we took action to drive down costs at the pharmacy counter as well.\n\n\u201cWe passed a law to ensure that patients get the savings from any discounts or rebates from their purchases at the pharmacy counter in their health care plans.\n\n\u201cWe removed incentives for pharmacy benefit managers to promote higher-priced medications at the expense of seniors.\n\n\u201cAnd we improved access to more affordable generic drugs.\n\n\u201cMadam President, as I said, in addition to reducing taxes and working to lower costs, Republicans were also committed to dealing with the Biden border crisis.\n\n\u201cPresident Trump took action immediately to get the situation at our southern border under control.\n\n\u201cAnd the reduction in illegal immigration has been staggering.\n\n\u201cDuring the last full year of the Biden border crisis \u2013 which was fiscal year 2024 \u2013 there were well over 2 million illegal immigrant encounters at our southern border.\n\n\u201cWell, we\u2019re almost done with fiscal year 2026, and you want to know how many encounters there have been at the southern border?\n\n\u201cFewer than 120,000.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re looking at somewhere on the order of a 90 percent decrease.\n\n\u201cAnd you want to know how many of those illegal immigrants have been released into the United States?\n\n\u201cZero.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\n\n\u201cNot a single illegal immigrant has been released into the United States during the entire 2026 fiscal year.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s been the case for 15 straight months, in fact, under President Trump.\n\n\u201cAnd I don\u2019t need to tell anyone what a massive turnaround that is from the Biden administration, which presided over the release of millions of illegal immigrants into our country\u2019s interior.\n\n\u201cMadam President, the dangers of the unchecked illegal immigration that we saw under the Biden administration are manifold.\n\n\u201cAnd to help prevent anything like that from happening again, the Working Families Tax Cuts included substantial resources to help guarantee the security of our nation\u2019s border, from additional Border Patrol agents to security technology.\n\n\u201cWe also boosted funding for our national defense and for law enforcement.\n\n\u201cSafer communities and a safer country \u2013 that has been and will continue to be a Republican priority.\n\n\u201cMadam President, our work isn\u2019t done.\n\n\u201cBut I\u2019m proud of what we\u2019ve been able to do this Congress to put more money in Americans\u2019 pockets and to help make our country more secure.\n\n\u201cAnd hardworking Americans will continue to be at the top of Republicans\u2019 agenda.\u201d", 1, "2026-09-15T09:50:21Z", "2026-09-15T09:52:05Z"]], "columns": ["url", 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