{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=6788477F-8D22-48EA-A607-44BA0D3F2E1F", "Thune: Democrats Leave Rural Americans Behind, Prioritize Socialist Policies", "2021-10-05", "2021", "2021-10", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke about how the Democrats\u2019 reckless tax-and-spending spree will hurt rural Americans and middle-class families in South Dakota. Thune vowed to do everything he can to protect South Dakotans from Democrats\u2019 out-of-touch, socialist fantasies.\n\nClick here to watch the video.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, there are a few quote-unquote \u201cwinners\u201d under Democrats\u2019 $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending spree.\n\n\u201cUnions, for example.\n\n\u201cAnd electric vehicle manufacturers.\n\n\u201cBut there are a lot more losers.\n\n\u201cLike middle-class families, who will have to stretch their paychecks to cover higher inflation and higher energy bills.\n\n\u201cWorkers, who will see jobs and opportunities shrink.\n\n\u201cAnd farmers and ranchers.\n\n\u201cMr. President, agriculture is the lifeblood of my home state of South Dakota, and so ag issues are pretty much always on my mind.\n\n\u201cAnd I am deeply concerned by what Democrats\u2019 tax-and-spending spree will mean for South Dakota farmers.\n\n\u201cFor starters, I\u2019m worried that Democrats\u2019 bill could mean the end of some family farms thanks to the bill\u2019s expansion of the death tax.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019ve long crusaded against the death tax.\n\n\u201cDeath should not be a taxable event.\n\n\u201cAnd there should be limits on how many times the government can tax the same money.\n\n\u201cBut I get particularly fired up when talking about the death tax when it comes to farmers and ranchers.\n\n\u201cBecause the death tax can threaten the existence of family farms and ranches.\n\n\u201cWhy?\n\n\u201cBecause farming and ranching are often cash-poor operations.\n\n\u201cFarmers\u2019 and ranchers\u2019 money is tied up in their land, not the bank.\n\n\u201cSo a farmer could have land worth as much as several million dollars, and still struggle to break even in years where the harvest has been poor.\n\n\u201cThen when that same farmer dies, the IRS will come in demanding a substantial portion of his estate, but since most of his money is tied up in the land, there\u2019s a good chance that the family will not have enough money in the bank to pay the IRS.\n\n\u201cAnd so they\u2019ll have to start selling off land \u2013 the lifeblood of their farming operation.\n\n\u201cGive it a couple generations, and the death tax can drive a family farm right out of existence.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I am proud that the tax reform bill we passed in 2017 included death tax relief.\n\n\u201cWe successfully doubled the estate tax exemption, which lifted the specter of the death tax for most farmers and ranchers and helped reduce the need for costly estate planning efforts to try to keep the farm or ranch in the family.\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, we were not able to make this relief permanent, which is why I\u2019ve continued to push for eliminating the death tax.\n\n\u201cBut at least family farms and ranches were set to have relief through 2025.\n\n\u201cNot anymore.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are set to return the death tax exemption to its pre-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act level starting in January.\n\n\u201cWhich means that more family farms and ranches will once again be in the tax\u2019s crosshairs.\n\n\u201cMr. President, as I said, death should not be a taxable event.\n\n\u201cThe IRS should not be coming in at the same time as the undertaker.\n\n\u201cAnd the government should not be in the business of shuttering family farms and family businesses.\n\n\u201cBut thanks to Democrats\u2019 tax-and-spending spree, a lot of farmers are going to have to start worrying about whether they\u2019ll be able to hand their farm on to their children \u2013 or whether a government tax bill will mean the end of an enterprise their family has cultivated for generations.\n\n\u201cThe icing on the cake, of course, is that at the same time Democrats are planning to expand a tax that threatens family farms, they\u2019re also planning to include tax relief for their millionaire contributors in blue states.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\n\n\u201cDespite the fact that Democrats are scrambling for money to fund some of their spending spree, they\u2019re preparing to provide tax relief for wealthy Democrat donors.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019m disturbed by the fact that Democrats are willing to jeopardize family farms and ranches to help fund their spending spree.\n\n\u201cBut I\u2019m not all that surprised.\n\n\u201cBecause it\u2019s clear from the bill that farmers and ranchers are not high on Democrats\u2019 priority list.\n\n\u201cThe bill\u2019s spending on rail, for example, emphasizes passenger rail \u2013 which will benefit Amtrak and a handful of East Coast cities but means little to most Americans.\n\n\u201cThe rail that matters to Americans in the heartland is freight rail, particularly short line railroads, which carry farmers\u2019 and ranchers\u2019 corn and wheat and beef to markets around the United States.\n\n\u201cBut short line rail gets short shrift in this bill.\n\n\u201cBiofuels also get short shrift.\n\n\u201cAs this bill makes clear, Democrats have picked their preferred winner in the clean energy stakes \u2013 electric vehicles.\n\n\u201cBiofuels take a back seat in Democrats\u2019 legislation, despite the essential role they have played in making American energy cleaner \u2013 and despite the significance of biofuels to the rural economy.\n\n\u201cMr. President, every few years, Congress passes a major farm bill.\n\n\u201cFor decades, that legislation has been the product of bipartisan collaboration \u2013 and a lengthy hearing and fact-finding process that allows for extensive input from farmers and ranchers and other ag stakeholders.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s one of the last truly bipartisan things we regularly do around here.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats have decided to use their tax-and-spending spree to circumvent the bipartisan farm bill process.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are extending farm programs without bipartisan input and without real involvement from many in the agriculture community.\n\n\u201cAnd of course they\u2019re not extending all farm bill programs.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re not, for example, extending \u2013 or providing money for \u2013 the farm safety net.\n\n\u201cInstead they\u2019re targeting money at programs that they feel will allow them to advance their climate agenda.\n\n\u201cFarmers are not Democrats\u2019 main interest when it comes to the agriculture provisions of this bill; Democrats\u2019 climate agenda is the priority.\n\n\u201cMr. President, if I\u2019m not here in Washington for Senate business, I can usually be found back home in South Dakota, where I spend a lot of time talking to farmers and ranchers.\n\n\u201cMost of them haven\u2019t shown a lot of interest in tax breaks for union dues or electric vehicle tax credits.\n\n\u201cBut I have heard from a lot of farmers and ranchers who are worried that Democrats\u2019 proposed tax policies may threaten their livelihood.\n\n\u201cAnd unfortunately they\u2019re right to be worried.\n\n\u201cSpeaker Pelosi suggested that this tax-and-spending spree was about Democrats\u2019 values.\n\n\u201cBased on what we\u2019ve seen, I\u2019m not too sure those values align with those of rural Americans.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 tax-and-spending spree is a bad deal for rural Americans \u2013 and for working families around the country.\n\n\u201cAnd I\u2019ll continue to do everything I can to protect Americans from the dangers of Democrats\u2019 socialist fantasies.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:24:51Z"]], "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=6788477F-8D22-48EA-A607-44BA0D3F2E1F"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9882210288196802, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": 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