{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-senate-republicans-deliver-historic-results-for-the-american-people/", "Thune: Senate Republicans Deliver Historic Results for the American People", "2026-05-19", "2026", "2026-05", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "Clickhereto 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\u201cMr. President, yesterday marked 500 days of the Republican majority here in the United States Senate.\n\n\u201cAnd what a busy 500 days it\u2019s been.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve taken close to 800 votes since last January.\n\n\u201cConfirmed just under 500 nominees to posts across the federal government and judiciary.\n\n\u201cAnd we\u2019ve passed bills out of the Senate and into law to make life better for the American people.\n\n\u201cMr. President, when Republicans took over last year, we set out to address cost-of-living issues and put more money in Americans\u2019 pockets.\n\n\u201cWe lifted costly Biden-era regulations \u2013 from rules that would have driven up the cost of household appliances, to rules that would have forced Americans into expensive electric vehicles.\n\n\u201cAt the start of this year, we took action to drive down the cost of prescription drugs at the pharmacy counter.\n\n\u201cAnd in March, the Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bill that cuts red tape that has prevented the construction of new housing and kept too many Americans waiting to realize the American Dream of homeownership.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m proud of the broad bipartisan support this bill received here in the Senate, and I hope these commonsense reforms will make it to the president\u2019s desk in short order.\n\n\u201cMr. President, lifting costly regulations and taking action to lower the cost of prescriptions and housing are significant actions.\n\n\u201cBut what I consider to be the most consequential action not just of this majority, but of my entire time in the Senate, is the Working Families Tax Cuts.\n\n\u201cAnd I say most consequential, Mr. President, because of the permanent tax relief Republicans delivered in this bill.\n\n\u201cTax relief that puts more money in hardworking Americans\u2019 pockets \u2013 that was the centerpiece of this bill.\n\n\u201cAnd a whole lot of Americans saw that last month when they filed their tax returns and saw a significantly higher refund.\n\n\u201cHardworking Americans were able to take advantage of permanently lower tax rates, an increased standard deduction, and the $2,200 child tax credit.\n\n\u201cSix million workers deducted income from tips.\n\n\u201c25 million workers took advantage of no tax on overtime.\n\n\u201cAnd 30 million seniors were able to reduce their tax burden with the $6,000 senior deduction created by this bill.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the Working Families Tax Cuts lets hardworking people keep more of their hard-earned money.\n\n\u201cIt also strengthens America\u2019s small businesses and family farms and ranches.\n\n\u201cLower tax rates and the 199A small business deduction free up money for them to invest in their operations and their employees.\n\n\u201cInvestment incentives like 100 percent bonus depreciation and immediate research and development expensing help them upgrade and innovate.\n\n\u201cAnd a lot of \u2026 family business owners, farmers, and ranchers breathed a sigh of relief when this bill passed because it protects them from a potentially devastating death tax bill \u2013 not to mention the costly estate planning expenses that come along with this tax.\n\n\u201cMr. President, these measures are part of Republicans\u2019 focus on strengthening America\u2019s economy.\n\n\u201cAnd an important part of that is strengthening our agriculture economy.\n\n\u201cMr. President, America\u2019s farms and ranches have faced some serious headwinds lately.\n\n\u201cHigher input costs, depressed commodity prices, higher interest rates, and natural disasters and disease are just some of the challenges ag producers have faced in recent years.\n\n\u201cSo Republicans set out to deliver some much-needed relief to the ag sector.\n\n\u201cIn the Working Families Tax Cuts, we made lasting reforms to strengthen the farm safety net.\n\n\u201cThanks to this bill, reference prices for commodity programs more closely reflect the actual \u2026 market conditions farmers are dealing with.\n\n\u201cWe bolstered crop insurance.\n\n\u201cAnd we improved the Livestock Indemnity Program and Livestock Forage Disaster Program to help ranchers and other livestock producers through challenging times.\n\n\u201cBut, Mr. President, we still have more to do to strengthen the agricultural economy.\n\n\u201cSenators Boozman and Hoeven are working on a farm relief package to address the challenges facing farmers right now.\n\n\u201cAllowing the year-round sale of E15 fuel is another priority.\n\n\u201cYear-round E15 is something that helps not only the ag economy but the overall economy by reducing fuel costs and allowing for more home-grown energy.\n\n\u201cThe House has passed a bill to allow year-round E15, and we\u2019ll be having discussions on how to accomplish that goal in the Senate in the near future.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Republicans have also made it a priority to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.\n\n\u201cThe Working Families Tax Cuts included a number of reforms to focus federal dollars on those most in need, guard against abuse of taxpayer funds, and hold states accountable for the federal funding that they receive.\n\n\u201cNew measures in the law prevent noncitizens from receiving federal health care and nutrition benefits and refocus those programs on serving American citizens.\n\n\u201cThe law requires states to be good stewards of federal programs like Medicaid and nutrition assistance.\n\n\u201cAnd it takes aim at duplicative enrollment in federal health care programs, which CMS estimates costs taxpayers as much as $14 billion per year.\n\n\u201cEarlier this year, President Trump signed into law Senator Kennedy\u2019s bill that helps prevent the payment of federal benefits to deceased individuals.\n\n\u201cAnd after revelations of widespread fraud in the state of Minnesota at the end of last year, we confirmed the first-ever assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement.\n\n\u201cThen there are our actions to ensure Washington is a better steward of taxpayer dollars.\n\n\u201cThe Working Families Tax Cuts prevented Americans\u2019 tax dollars from funding big abortion providers for one year.\n\n\u201cAnd last summer, Republicans passed a rescissions package that targeted funding that had gone to some egregious misuses of taxpayer dollars \u2013 like a pride parade in Lesotho and promoting vegan food in Zambia.\n\n\u201cAnd we continue to work to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being wasted.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I said at the outset of this Congress that I wanted to restore regular-order consideration of appropriation bills.\n\n\u201cAnd we were largely able to accomplish that goal, even after Democrats tried to derail the process with the longest government shutdown in history this past fall.\n\n\u201cThis year, we were able to pass 11 of the 12 full appropriations bills into law.\n\n\u201cAnd many of those bills actually spent less money than if we had just put spending on autopilot through a continuing resolution.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the only reason we haven\u2019t passed 12 out of 12 full appropriations bills this year is that our Democrat colleagues apparently don\u2019t believe in securing our nation\u2019s borders.\n\n\u201cTheir refusal to provide even a dollar for the Border Patrol in this year\u2019s DHS funding bill is ample evidence of that.\n\n\u201cRepublicans most certainly believe in border security.\n\n\u201cIn fact, addressing the dangerous situation at our southern border was one of our top priorities when we took over last year.\n\n\u201cThe first bill we passed was the Laken Riley Act, to ensure that illegal immigrants who have committed certain crimes are not allowed back on our streets.\n\n\u201cWe passed the HALT Fentanyl Act to give law enforcement the tools it needs to go after this deadly poison, much of which flows across our southern border.\n\n\u201cAnd the Working Families Tax Cuts made a generational investment in border security.\n\n\u201cAnd we\u2019re seeing the results of that investment and the Trump administration\u2019s actions at the border.\n\n\u201cEncounters at our southern border have dropped dramatically, and for the past 12 months, not a single illegal immigrant has been released into the United States.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are clearly trying to undo that progress.\n\n\u201cBut Republicans won\u2019t let that happen.\n\n\u201cAs soon as this week, we will take up a bill to fully fund Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the remainder of the Trump administration and ensure that Democrats cannot put our nation\u2019s security in jeopardy by defunding law enforcement.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I mentioned earlier that we\u2019ve confirmed almost 500 civilian nominees since last January \u2013 and that\u2019s been in the face of \u2026 a historic level of obstruction from Democrats.\n\n\u201cAfter months and months of unprecedented Democrat obstruction, last year Republicans took action to restore the Senate\u2019s tradition of confirming largely noncontroversial nominees in batches.\n\n\u201cAnd last night, we confirmed the fourth package of Trump nominees and effectively eliminated the backlog of nominees awaiting confirmation.\n\n\u201cAnd Mr. President, speaking of Democrat obstruction \u2013 Democrats have also blocked several pieces of commonsense legislation here in the Senate.\n\n\u201cThey blocked Senator Tuberville\u2019s Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would have simply prevented biological men from competing in women\u2019s sports.\n\n\u201cThey blocked Senator Lankford\u2019s Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have required that babies who survive abortion are given the same level of care as babies born at the same gestational age.\n\n\u201cDemocrats wouldn\u2019t even let us debate these bills \u2013 and, I have to imagine, because their position is completely indefensible.\n\n\u201cThen just recently, Democrats blocked the SAVE America Act.\n\n\u201cMr. President, we had a robust debate on this bill for several weeks.\n\n\u201cRepublicans gave Democrats opportunities to support the whole bill, and we had standalone votes on some of the individual and very commonsense components of the bill:\n\n\u201cRequiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.\n\n\u201cRequiring a photo ID to vote.\n\n\u201cProtecting children from gender transition surgeries.\n\n\u201cKeeping biological men out of women\u2019s sports.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats are on the record against all of it.\n\n\u201cAnd we\u2019ll be sure the American people know that Democrats are blocking commonsense policies that have broad support from the American people.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019ve mentioned a number of accomplishments this morning.\n\n\u201cBut there\u2019s more work to be done.\n\n\u201cLast week, the Banking Committee advanced the Clarity Act \u2013 a market structure bill for cryptocurrencies that builds on the GENIUS Act that became law last year and which was the first-ever crypto bill passed into law.\n\n\u201cI expect the Senate will also take action on an artificial intelligence bill this year that builds on the AI framework the White House has put out.\n\n\u201cAnd legislation dealing with name, image, and likeness in college athletics is also on the agenda.\n\n\u201cAs is legislation ensuring continued funding for our nation\u2019s transportation infrastructure.\n\n\u201cIn the near-term, we will also need to extend FISA and ensure that this critical national security program does not go dark.\n\n\u201cAnd we will soon begin work on the FY 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, which will continue Republicans\u2019 efforts to modernize America\u2019s military.\n\n\u201cAnd, of course, we will continue to prioritize efforts to make life easier for hardworking Americans.\n\n\u201cMr. President, 500 days ago Republicans had a long to-do list.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve checked a lot of things off, but we still have more to do.\n\n\u201cAnd we\u2019re not about to take our foot off the gas.\u201d", 1, "2026-06-27T20:01:11Z", "2026-06-27T22:21:02Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", 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