{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-the-working-families-tax-cuts-delivered-major-wins-for-the-american-people/", "Thune: The Working Families Tax Cuts Delivered Major Wins for the American People", "2026-06-22", "2026", "2026-06", "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, we\u2019re approaching one year since the Working Families Tax Cuts became law.\n\n\u201cFor nearly a year now, the American people have been seeing the benefits of this bill.\n\n\u201cFrom a more secure border to a stronger military.\n\n\u201cLarger paychecks and bigger refunds.\n\n\u201cSupport for farmers and ranchers.\n\n\u201cAnd a lifeline for struggling rural health care providers.\n\n\u201cMadam President, for the past year the story of the Working Families Tax Cuts has been unfolding across the country in a number of ways.\n\n\u201cAnd this afternoon, I want to talk about how Republicans\u2019 landmark bill has strengthened our economy and put more money in Americans\u2019 pockets.\n\n\u201cMadam President, when this Republican majority took over last year, the American people were reeling from the pain of the Biden economy.\n\n\u201cThey had suffered through an inflation crisis during which the cost of living increased by more than 20 percent in just a few years.\n\n\u201cAnd without action from Congress, they were looking at a $4 trillion tax hike in the not-too-distant future.\n\n\u201cFor folks in my home state, that would have meant paying $2,500 more in federal taxes this year.\n\n\u201cAnd that was completely unacceptable to Republicans.\n\n\u201cAnd so we set out to prevent that tax hike.\n\n\u201cAnd not just prevent it, Madam President.\n\n\u201cWe made our 2017 tax reform permanent so that that tax hike would never come.\n\n\u201cAnd then we provided additional tax relief to lower- and middle-income Americans so that they would be able to keep more of their hard-earned money.\n\n\u201cThanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts, 97 percent of Americans who filed taxes this year got a tax cut.\n\n\u201cLet me repeat that, Madam President.\n\n\u201cRepublicans delivered a tax cut for \u2026 97 percent \u2026 of tax filers, collectively saving them $82 billion on their federal taxes just this year.\n\n\u201cWe made lower tax rates permanent.\n\n\u201cRaised the standard deduction and made that permanent as well.\n\n\u201cWe increased the child tax credit to $2,200 and linked it to the cost of living so that it never loses its value.\n\n\u201cThen we created a number of new tax relief provisions.\n\n\u201cThe new senior deduction helped 35 million Americans over age 65 reduce their tax burden this year.\n\n\u201cNo tax on tips meant that 7.5 million workers\u2019 income from tips landed in their pockets instead of going to the IRS.\n\n\u201cAnd 29 million workers \u2013 from nurses to police officers and factory workers \u2013 took advantage of the new overtime deduction.\n\n\u201cAll told, Madam President, Americans earning between $100,000 and $200,000 last year who took advantage of the new tax relief saw an average tax cut of $1,250.\n\n\u201cA bakery owner in Sioux Falls said her head chef got a bigger refund this year, and that she was able to put that extra money toward a crib for her new baby.\n\n\u201cAnd she\u2019s not the only one.\n\n\u201cHardworking people all across the country have additional money to put toward their expenses or their savings thanks to Republican tax relief.\n\n\u201cBut Madam President, the good news doesn\u2019t stop there.\n\n\u201cThe Working Families Tax Cuts also delivered meaningful pro-growth tax reforms for America\u2019s small businesses, farms, and ranches, enabling them to invest more in their operations and their employees.\n\n\u201cSmall businesses have benefited from lower tax rates.\n\n\u201cAnd the 199A small business deduction is now a permanent feature of the tax code.\n\n\u201cOne agricultural co-op in my state estimates the impact of that one provision helped its co-op members reinvest more than $100 million into our local economy in the last 10 years.\n\n\u201cThen there\u2019s 100 percent immediate expensing for new equipment, which allows small businesses, farms, and ranches to deduct the full cost of any new piece of equipment the year they start using it.\n\n\u201cThe owner of Montgomery\u2019s, a furniture store in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, called bonus depreciation, and I quote, \u2018a huge, huge deal\u2019 for his furniture store.\n\n\u201cAnd a car dealer in my state said this provision enabled his business \u2026 to build an addition and hire 10 new employees.\n\n\u201cAnd the now-permanent research and development tax credit is making a similar impact on small businesses in my state and on our farm economy.\n\n\u201cIn fact, our former colleague and neighbor to the north in North Dakota \u2013 former Democrat Senator Heidi Heitkamp \u2013 has said, and I quote, \u2018For many producers and ag-related businesses, this is more than a tax break; this is a real opportunity to reinvest, innovate and stay competitive.\u2019\n\n\u201cShe\u2019s right, and the same could be said for a good number of provisions in this bill.\n\n\u201cMadam President, I\u2019ve already talked a little about how [the] tax relief we passed benefits farmers and ranchers.\n\n\u201c\u2026 Although I haven\u2019t mentioned the higher estate tax threshold that protects a lot more family farms and ranches from the death tax \u2013 not to mention the costly estate-planning that comes with that unfair tax.\n\n\u201cBut this bill went further than tax relief.\n\n\u201cIt strengthened critical programs that producers depend upon.\n\n\u201cIt raised reference prices for every covered commodity so they more closely reflect the actual market conditions farmers are dealing with.\n\n\u201cIt bolstered crop insurance.\n\n\u201cAnd it supported livestock producers by making existing programs more responsive to drought.\n\n\u201cMadam President, we still have more work to do to strengthen the ag sector, but the Working Families Tax Cuts delivered meaningful relief to farmers after a challenging few years defined by higher input costs, higher interest rates, and natural disasters \u2013 all while many farm programs were inadequate to meet the circumstances that farmers were living in.\n\n\u201cSo helping our ag producers was a priority for Republicans when we came in last year, and it will continue to be a priority for us moving forward.\n\n\u201cMadam President, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time this afternoon talking about how Republicans aimed to turn things around with this bill.\n\n\u201cAnd there\u2019s one more thing I want to discuss before I finish.\n\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s rural health care.\n\n\u201cMadam President, for all the challenges in health care today, it\u2019s even harder for rural providers.\n\n\u201cMore than 100 rural hospitals have closed in the last two decades, and doctors in rural areas can be hard to come by.\n\n\u201cSo last year, in the Working Families Tax Cuts, Republicans did something to address the rural health care crisis.\n\n\u201cAnd in the last year, every single state has applied for funding from the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program created by our landmark bill.\n\n\u201cRather than a top-down, Washington-based approach, we\u2019re giving states the resources and freedom to find solutions to their unique challenges and to find sustainable ways of ensuring access to health care in their rural communities.\n\n\u201cAnd as I said, the response has been robust.\n\n\u201cEvery single state \u2013 red, blue, and purple \u2013 is planning to take advantage of this much-needed support, and they have big plans for folks in rural parts of their states.\n\n\u201cAnd I can\u2019t wait to see just how transformative the Rural Health Transformation Program is across this country.\n\n\u201cMadam President, it\u2019s fair to say that things weren\u2019t going great in a lot of ways the last few years before President Trump and Republicans took control in Washington.\n\n\u201cBut we\u2019ve been working to address those issues and implement solutions to the problems facing the American people.\n\n\u201cAnd far from patting ourselves on the back, we\u2019re keeping our foot on the gas.\n\n\u201cLater today, we\u2019ll pass a housing affordability bill.\n\n\u201cThe Agriculture Committee is continuing work on a farm bill and additional agricultural relief.\n\n\u201cAnd we continue important legislative efforts on issues from cryptocurrency to artificial intelligence to reining in waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.\n\n\u201cMadam President, one year ago Republicans delivered major wins for the American people in the Working Families Tax Cuts.\n\n\u201cAnd we are working every day to build on that success and to deliver again and again.\u201d", 1, "2026-06-23T06:27:52Z", "2026-06-23T06:29:20Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-the-working-families-tax-cuts-delivered-major-wins-for-the-american-people/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6879270076751709, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}