{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=9B111B49-2EC1-4657-96ED-E18DE95A1F79", "Thune: Democrats Plan to Double Down on Inflation-Creating Policies", "2021-11-02", "2021", "2021-11", "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 discussed Democrats\u2019 plan to flood the economy with unnecessary government money as they continue to ignore the growing inflation crisis. Thune noted that the Democrats\u2019 reckless tax-and-spending spree would only make inflation worse and that South Dakota families will ultimately pay the price.\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 obsession with taxing and spending (excerpts):\n\n\u201cMr. President, in all the time I\u2019ve been in Washington in both the House and Senate \u2026 I\u2019ve seen Republicans in control in the majorities, I\u2019ve seen Democrats in the majority.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve been on both sides of that.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen Republican presidents and Democrat presidents, but one thing that doesn't change is that when Democrats get power in Washington, they want to expand government.\n\n\u201cThey want to grow government.\n\n\u201cThey want to spend money.\n\n\u201cIf you just look throughout the history, at least in the time I\u2019ve been here, that\u2019s just a fact.\u201d\n\n\u2026\n\n\u201cI guess it doesn't come as any surprise that that's what Democrats do when they gain power, when they get majorities \u2013 they want to grow, they want to expand the government, they want to spend more money and raise taxes to do it.\n\n\u201cIt's almost like a kind of rite of passage that if you're going to be a good Democrat, this is what you do.\u201d\n\n\u2026\n\n\u201cI think part of this is, you know, President Biden was convinced he could be the next FDR, and to do that you got to spend lots of money. \u2026 But they've come up with a big list, and a list again that would be financed with lots of tax increases that I think could be incredibly harmful to the economy.\u201d\n\nOn rising inflation (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, last week we learned that economic growth for the third quarter had fallen short of expectations, largely driven by a deceleration in consumer spending and supply problems of goods and labor.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, American families continue to deal with what is rapidly becoming a serious, long-term inflation problem.\n\n\u201cLast month, consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in 30 years.\n\n\u201cAnd a recent estimate from the chief economist at Moody\u2019s Analytics suggested that an average household is having to spend an additional $175 a month on basics thanks to inflation.\n\n\u201c$175 a month.\n\n\u201cThat may not sound like much to a wealthy Democrat politician, but that is a lot of money for an ordinary American family.\n\n\u201c$175 a month can be the difference between putting something away in savings, and living paycheck to paycheck.\n\n\u201cIt can be the difference between whether or not you can afford braces for your child, or whether you have the money to replace a broken appliance or make a needed car repair.\n\n\u201cOur inflation problem has gotten to the point that it has overtaken wage growth.\n\n\u201cInflation is growing faster than wages, which means that many American families have received a de facto pay cut.\n\n\u201cSo how did we end up here?\n\n\u201cWell, Mr. President, a lot of the problem traces back to this past March, when Democrats decided to pour a lot of unnecessary government money into the economy under the guise of \u201cCOVID relief.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy the time the president and Democrats took office in January, Congress had passed no fewer than five bipartisan COVID relief bills \u2013 the most recent of them in December.\n\n\u201cThe December COVID relief bill we passed contained almost a trillion dollars in funding and met essentially all the pressing COVID needs the country was facing.\n\n\u201cBut that didn\u2019t matter to Democrats.\n\n\u201cNow that they were in charge, they were eager to take advantage of the opportunity the COVID crisis presented to push their big-government agenda.\n\n\u201cAnd so they decided to pass another \u2013 ostensible \u2013 COVID bill, less than three months after the December bill and before a lot of the money from the December bill had even been disbursed.\n\n\u201cThey gave $129 billion to schools \u2013 even though schools had spent just a small fraction of the $68 billion they\u2019d already been given.\n\n\u201cThey created a staggering $350 billion slush fund for states \u2013 despite the fact that the majority of states already had the money they needed to deal with the pandemic.\n\n\u201cThey extended enhanced unemployment benefits until September 2021, despite the millions of available job openings, and made part of the unemployment compensation tax-free \u2013 creating incentives for Americans to stay on unemployment instead of returning to work.\n\n\u201cAnd, among other things, they provided an additional $21 billion in rental assistance \u2013 none of which has yet been needed.\n\n\u201cIn short, their so-called American Rescue Plan flooded the economy with a lot of unnecessary government money.\n\n\u201cAnd the results were predictable:\n\n\u201cInflation.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods and services.\n\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s exactly the situation Democrats created.\n\n\u201cThey sent too many dollars into the economy \u2013 and the economy overheated as a result.\n\n\u201cAnd you don\u2019t have to take my word for it.\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s what former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman had to say recently when discussing our current inflation problem: \u2018The original sin was an oversized American Rescue Plan. It contributed to both higher output but also higher prices.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat quote from Mr. Furman appeared in a recent New York Times article that also noted, and I quote, \u2018But some economists, including veterans of previous Democratic administrations, say much of Mr. Biden\u2019s inflation struggle is self-inflicted. Lawrence H. Summers is one of those who say the stimulus bill the president signed in March gave too much of a boost to consumer spending \u2026 Mr. Summers, who served in the Obama and Clinton administrations, says inflation now risks spiraling out of control and other Democratic economists agree there are risks.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo what are congressional Democrats doing in response?\n\n\u201cWell, they\u2019re planning to flood the economy with even more government dollars.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\n\n\u201cInstead of keeping a sharp eye on government spending to make sure our inflation situation doesn\u2019t get worse, Democrats are planning to double down on the strategy that got us into this position in the first place.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are trying to finalize a new, $1.75 trillion tax-and-spending spree \u2013 the so-called \u2018Build Back Better\u2019 plan \u2013 on top of the $1.9 trillion spending spree from earlier this year.\n\n\u201cI say $1.75 trillion \u2013 but Democrats have only arrived at that number through a combination of shell games and budget gimmicks.\n\n\u201cThe real cost of this proposal over 10 years would likely be much higher.\n\n\u201cSo once again Democrats want to flood the economy with government dollars \u2013 including billions for such \u2018priorities\u2019 as tree equity and \u201cenvironmental justice\u201d programs at well-funded colleges and universities.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I am forcibly reminded of the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.\n\n\u201cWhat exactly do Democrats think is going to happen inflation-wise if they pass this $1.75 trillion legislation?\n\n\u201cDo they think that if one round of excessive government spending triggered inflation, another round of excessive government spending is going to cure it?\n\n\u201cDo they think that dumping more fuel onto an already overheated economy is somehow going to put out the inflationary fire?\n\n\u201cIf they do, they\u2019ve got another think coming.\n\n\u201cThe only thing Democrats\u2019 latest spending spree is going to do is make our inflation problem worse.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re already looking at serious inflation lasting well into next year.\n\n\u201cAdd Democrats\u2019 \u2018Build Back Better\u2019 spending spree to the mix, and we could be looking at a very long period of inflated prices \u2026 and reduced spending power for American families.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats were warned that their March spending spree could spur inflation.\n\n\u201cThey passed it anyway.\n\n\u201cSo I don\u2019t have a lot of hope that Democrats will heed concerns about inflation when it comes to their current tax-and-spending plan.\n\n\u201cBut I \u2013 and every Republican \u2013 will continue to urge my Democrat colleagues to rethink their spending agenda, before inflation soars out of control and American families suffer the consequences.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:30:49Z"]], "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=9B111B49-2EC1-4657-96ED-E18DE95A1F79"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.2859619930386543, "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"}