{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=3940D463-C83D-474F-8762-E511151ED73E", "Thune: It\u2019s Never a Good Time to Raise Taxes", "2022-07-26", "2022", "2022-07", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nU.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today discussed how Democrats want to impose a trillion dollars in tax hikes while record-high inflation is hurting small businesses and families in South Dakota. Thune warned that the Democrats\u2019 reckless tax-and-spending spree would guarantee persistent and widespread inflation.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, \u2018Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we\u2019ve seen \u2026 [are] expected to be temporary.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s what President Biden said one year ago this month \u2013 something his administration repeatedly echoed.\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, Mr. President, it long ago became clear that that was wishful thinking on the president\u2019s part.\n\n\u201cFar from being temporary, inflation has become a fact of life in the Biden economy.\n\n\u201cLast month, inflation hit its highest level yet under President Biden, climbing to 9.1 percent \u2013 the worst inflation in more than 40 years.\n\n\u201cAnd the impact of inflation is being felt in every corner of our economy.\n\n\u201cBusinesses of every size are dealing with the effects of inflation.\n\n\u201cAnd small businesses, of course, are being hit particularly hard.\n\n\u201cSeventy-five percent of small business owners report that inflation has had a negative effect on the financial health of their business over the past six months.\n\n\u201cAnd 75 percent report that inflation pressures are getting worse.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not surprising.\n\n\u201cEverything from inputs to transportation to electricity has become more expensive in the Biden economy.\n\n\u201cAnd that has a huge impact on businesses\u2019 ability to pay their expenses and run their operations.\n\n\u201cAs one South Dakota business owner who wrote to me noted, \u2018It makes it hard for me to grow my USA-made business when I don\u2019t have the funds to pay my employees more, add more benefits, purchase more machinery, and buy more material in bulk as inflation continues to rise.\u2019\n\n\u201cFarmers and ranchers in my state are also struggling.\n\n\u201cAs of March, the price of fertilizer had risen an astounding 162 percent since January 2021.\n\n\u201cThe prices of two common herbicides have risen more than 50 percent since last year.\n\n\u201cAnd the price of diesel, which powers a lot of farming and ranching equipment, has doubled since President Biden took office.\n\n\u201cFarming and ranching are tough jobs already, often with tight margins and a lot of weather-related risks, and inflation is making things exponentially harder.\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, the list of inflation\u2019s impacts goes on.\n\n\u201cFor example, last week I talked about how inflation is affecting our military, which is able to do less with the funds appropriated for it thanks to soaring prices across the economy.\n\n\u201cThat in turn can affect troop readiness and the military\u2019s ability to keep up with needed programs and purchases, from weapons to vehicles to aircraft and ships.\n\n\u201cAnd of course I haven\u2019t even yet mentioned the most basic impact of inflation \u2013 the misery faced by hardworking Americans who confront sky-high prices at the grocery store and the gas pump and wonder how they\u2019re going to feed their family this month or whether they\u2019ll be able to afford to get to work.\n\n\u201cBloomberg reported last week that nearly six in 10 American workers are concerned that their paychecks won\u2019t stretch far enough to support themselves and their families.\n\n\u201cAnd another recent poll reported that 70 percent of Americans have had to cut back on other spending to afford necessities.\n\n\u201cLife in the Biden economy is grim.\n\n\u201cMr. President, at this point how we got here is well-established.\n\n\u201cOne of the main reasons we\u2019re in the midst of this inflation crisis is Democrats\u2019 decision to pass a massive, partisan, $1.9 trillion spending bill last March under the guise of COVID relief \u2013 despite the fact that Congress had just passed a fifth bipartisan COVID bill that met essentially all current pressing COVID needs.\n\n\u201cDemocrats were warned that their bill could cause inflation.\n\n\u201cThey proceeded anyway.\n\n\u201cTheir so-called American Rescue Plan flooded the economy with unnecessary government money.\n\n\u201cAnd the economy overheated as a result.\n\n\u201cAnd so here we are, with Americans struggling under the weight of the worst inflation in 40 years, and Democrats \u2026 want to double down on the spending strategy that helped get us into this mess in the first place.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\n\n\u201cDespite the fact that even Democrat economists have stated that the American Rescue Plan helped create our current inflation crisis, Democrats want to pass another massive government spending bill filled with excessive spending and tax hikes.\n\n\u201cA trillion dollars in tax hikes, in recent discussions.\n\n\u201cApparently Democrats are not content with spending us into an inflation crisis; they\u2019d also like to tax us into a recession.\n\n\u201cMr. President, there\u2019s already reason to worry about the negative economic impacts of new climate measures the president is contemplating imposing.\n\n\u201cBut on top of that, Democrats want to spend even more government money and impose a trillion dollars in tax hikes \u2026 a substantial part of which would fall on small businesses.\n\n\u201cAt this rate, Mr. President, there\u2019s no telling when our inflation crisis will end.\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, Democrats are so committed to big spending that even if their legislation fails this time around, they\u2019re already planning to run on their big spending agenda in November.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure I would want to try to convince voters to elect me by touting the same spending strategy that helped land our country in this inflation crisis.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats\u2019 belief in big spending is so deeply ingrained that it apparently can\u2019t be swayed even when they see the negative consequences.\n\n\u201cMr. President, it is incomprehensible that Democrats are contemplating doubling down on the spending strategy that helped get us into this mess in the first place.\n\n\u201cTheir first spending spree was a disaster for our country.\n\n\u201cI can only imagine how much Americans would suffer from their next one.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:20:25Z"]], "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/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=3940D463-C83D-474F-8762-E511151ED73E"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.9741109572350979, "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"}