{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=40E728A3-EC3F-46DF-A619-CB23B31C49AE", "Thune: South Dakota Taxpayers Cannot Afford the Democrats\u2019 Reckless Spending", "2022-08-03", "2022", "2022-08", "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 the Democrats\u2019 reckless tax-and-spending spree would hurt South Dakota taxpayers. Thune noted that according to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Americans in nearly every income bracket would bear a significant burden of this bill\u2019s tax hikes, with more than half of the increased burden falling on Americans making $400,000 or less.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, \u2018You don\u2019t want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018You don\u2019t want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.\u2019\n\n\u201cThose aren\u2019t my words.\n\n\u201cThose were the words of the current Democrat leader in 2008.\n\n\u201c\u2018You don\u2019t want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.\u2019\n\n\u201cApparently it\u2019s a philosophy the Democrat leader no longer subscribes to.\n\n\u201cBecause last week, he introduced legislation \u2026 to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 so-called Inflation Reduction Act \u2013 a misnomer if there ever was one, since the bill will do nothing to help alleviate our current inflation crisis \u2013 would take hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy in the form of tax hikes and comes just as our economy posted a second quarter of negative growth.\n\n\u201cNotably, the bill imposes a $313 billion tax hike on American businesses \u2013 with roughly half of that increase falling on American manufacturers.\n\n\u201cI guess the president\u2019s commitment to boosting American manufacturing takes a back seat to raising revenue to fund Democrats\u2019 Green New Deal priorities.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I don\u2019t think I need to tell anyone what happens when you raise taxes on businesses \u2013 particularly when the economy is shrinking.\n\n\u201cYou get less growth, lower wages, and fewer jobs.\n\n\u201cAccording to an analysis from the National Association of Manufacturers, in 2023 alone Democrats\u2019 bill would reduce real gross domestic product by more than $68 billion and result in 218,108 fewer workers in the overall economy.\n\n\u201cAnd ordinary Americans would bear a substantial part of the burden of this tax increase.\n\n\u201cAccording to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Democrats\u2019 bill would increase the tax burden on Americans across every income bracket, with more than half of the increased tax burden falling on Americans making $400,000 or less.\n\n\u201cNext year alone, Democrats\u2019 bill would increase the tax burden on Americans earning less than $200,000 by $16.7 billion.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats are brazenly attempting to sell this new tax as somehow closing a loophole, instead of hiking taxes on American businesses.\n\n\u201cBut that isn\u2019t even close to being the truth.\n\n\u201cWhen companies pay less than the current corporate tax rate, they\u2019re often simply taking advantage of tax credits that Republicans and Democrats put in place to encourage investment in things like research and development or the production of new technologies.\n\n\u201cDemocrats aren\u2019t closing a loophole in the tax code.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re raising taxes on American businesses \u2013 at a time when our economy has posted two consecutive quarters of negative growth.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re raising taxes on businesses that are already struggling with historically high inflation.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats claim they will make large companies pay at least a 15 percent minimum tax.\n\n\u201cBut that isn\u2019t true either.\n\n\u201cBecause Democrats have created carveouts to their own minimum tax.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\n\n\u201cNot all companies will have to pay the new book minimum tax.\n\n\u201cFor instance, green energy companies \u2013 and companies that take green energy tax credits \u2013 will be allowed to pay less than Democrats\u2019 alternative minimum corporate tax rate.\n\n\u201cIn other words, if you are a member of, or invest in, Democrats\u2019 preferred industries, you get special tax treatment under Democrats\u2019 legislation.\n\n\u201cSo much for ensuring that all companies \u201cpay their fair share.\u201d\n\n\u201cMr. President, in addition to their $313 billion tax hike on American businesses, Democrats\u2019 legislation also raises taxes on investment \u2013 another bad idea at a time when our economy is already shrinking.\n\n\u201cPerhaps Democrats\u2019 real plan is to reduce inflation by slowing our economy and ensuring that we enter a recession \u2013 or stagflation.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 legislation also raises taxes on oil and gas production \u2013 even as Americans continue to struggle with high energy prices, including a 75 percent increase in gas prices since President Biden took office.\n\n\u201cAnd taxes aren\u2019t the only way Democrats raise revenue in this bill to pay for their Green New Deal measures.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 bill also attempts to raise revenue by increasing IRS audits and enforcement.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 legislation gives the IRS an additional $80 billion in funding over 10 years.\n\n\u201cThis would allow the IRS to hire an additional 87,000 employees \u2013 meaning that the IRS would have nearly three times as many personnel as U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with overseeing security at our nation\u2019s borders.\n\n\u201cThe IRS\u2019 budget would also substantially exceed Customs and Border Protection\u2019s budget if this legislation is enacted.\n\n\u201cYou might think that given the raging crisis at our southern border, the Biden administration would be focused on beefing up funding and personnel for Customs and Border Protection instead of the IRS.\n\n\u201cBut you\u2019d be wrong.\n\n\u201cApparently the need to find money for Democrats\u2019 Green New Deal trumps the need for a secure border.\n\n\u201cMr. President, of the additional $80 billion that Democrats\u2019 bill would hand to the IRS, 57 percent \u2013 or more than $45 billion \u2013 would go to enforcement, and 4 percent would go to taxpayer services.\n\n\u201cFour percent.\n\n\u201cAs I said on the floor yesterday, we\u2019re talking about an agency that only succeeded in answering about one out of every 50 taxpayer phone calls during the 2021 tax season \u2013 and has repeatedly mishandled sensitive taxpayer data.\n\n\u201cTo name just one instance, confidential taxpayer information was either leaked or hacked from the IRS last year and shared with the left-leaning ProPublica in order to advance a partisan agenda.\n\n\u201cAnd more than a year later, the IRS still hasn\u2019t provided meaningful follow-up to Congress or accountability to taxpayers.\n\n\u201cAnd yet Democrats\u2019 focus is not on improving the IRS\u2019 responsiveness and accountability, but on boosting the number of audits.\n\n\u201cAnd speaking of those audits.\n\n\u201cNo one should think that the IRS would just be auditing major corporations and billionaires.\n\n\u201cNo, this bill would result in a lot of audits of small businesses and ordinary Americans.\n\n\u201cIn fact, it\u2019s extremely unlikely that Democrats will be able to gather the revenue they\u2019re claiming they can get from increased IRS enforcement unless they audit Americans making less than $200,000.\n\n\u201cBased on data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, 78 to 90 percent of the revenue projected to be raised from under-reported income would likely come from those making under $200,000.\n\n\u201cOnly 4 to 9 percent would come from those making more than $500,000.\n\n\u201cMr. President, after more than a year of high inflation \u2013 spurred by Democrats\u2019 reckless American Rescue Plan spending spree \u2013 and with an economy that has shrunk for the past two quarters, it\u2019s hard to believe that Democrats are trying to pass hundreds of billions in tax hikes.\n\n\u201cBut once again, economic common sense is taking a back seat to Democrats\u2019 big-spending, big-government ideology.\n\n\u201cDemocrats have already inflicted a lot of economic pain on the American people.\n\n\u201cAnd if this legislation passes, there is more to come.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:26:22Z"]], "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=40E728A3-EC3F-46DF-A619-CB23B31C49AE"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.209682948887348, "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"}