{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=C805872B-3EBE-444B-91CA-E0CE00993790", "Thune: Biden-Harris Economic Policies Leave Working Families in the Dust", "2024-07-31", "2024", "2024-07", "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\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor about the harsh realities families are facing due to the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s tax-and-spend agenda. Thune noted that working families are paying more for everything from groceries to gas, while also dealing with soaring interest rates, mounting debt, and shrinking savings due to this administration\u2019s misguided economic policies.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, America has always been a place where if you work hard, you can get ahead.\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s a lot more challenging in the Biden economy.\n\n\u201cInflation has dealt working families a series of setbacks that have made it harder to get ahead.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s in large part due to this administration\u2019s reckless spending.\n\n\u201cMr. President, three and a half years ago Vice President Harris cast her first tie-breaking votes in the Senate to advance $1.9 trillion in spending under the guise of pandemic relief.\n\n\u201cShe and our Democrat colleagues had been warned that that level of spending risked setting off inflation unlike any we had seen in a generation.\n\n\u201cBut they passed it anyway.\n\n\u201cAnd inflation began to take off almost immediately.\n\n\u201cThree years later, prices have gone up by more than 20 percent.\n\n\u201cGroceries are up 21 percent.\n\n\u201cThe cost of car repairs is up 31 percent.\n\n\u201cEnergy costs have gone up 40 percent.\n\n\u201cNearly every aspect of daily life is more expensive in the Biden-Harris economy, and Americans are struggling to make ends meet.\n\n\u201cMore than one-third of Americans are worried about paying their bills.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re pulling back on their spending and putting more on their credit cards.\n\n\u201cSome people are even taking on extra work just to get by.\n\n\u201cBut sometimes, it\u2019s still not enough.\n\n\u201cAs one new mom in Missouri put it: \u2018It's just hard. I work full time. My husband works full time. I feel like at this point, we're moving more towards survival mode, rather than thriving.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnother mom in Virginia says of her sons and their wives \u2018everybody is working as absolutely hard as they can. They are not farther ahead than my husband and I were 30 years ago.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd another woman in Pennsylvania, who\u2019s working two jobs, says \u2018Prior to inflation, I didn\u2019t have any debt, I didn\u2019t have any credit cards, never applied for like a payday loan or any of those things. But since inflation I needed to do all those things\u2026I\u2019ve had to downgrade my life completely.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, they\u2019re not alone.\n\n\u201cFor many Americans, life in the Biden-Harris economy feels like a downgrade.\n\n\u201cIt now costs a typical family $13,000 more per year just to maintain the same standard of living it enjoyed when President Biden took office.\n\n\u201c$13,000 more just to tread water.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s an incredible strain on families\u2019 budgets.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s not just higher prices, measures to tame inflation have also added to Americans\u2019 financial pain.\n\n\u201cTo fight inflation, the Federal Reserve has been forced to keep interest rates high, which affects Americans\u2019 finances in a variety of ways.\n\n\u201cAs I said, many Americans have turned to credit cards to cope with inflation.\n\n\u201cAnd higher interest rates, in part the result of the Fed\u2019s actions, are making credit card bills harder to pay down.\n\n\u201cThe same is true for car payments.\n\n\u201cAnd Americans looking to own their own home are facing what one housing expert called \u2018the most challenging home buying market we\u2019ve ever seen.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe average monthly mortgage payment is a staggering $2,600 \u2013 the result of a combination of higher mortgage rates and higher home prices.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the White House has spent a lot of time trying to spin this economy as strong.\n\n\u201cBut the American people aren\u2019t buying it.\n\n\u201cAn economy where people are working harder and still struggling to get by isn\u2019t what most Americans consider a strong economy.\n\n\u201cAnd it can\u2019t be America\u2019s future.\n\n\u201cI said inflation began accelerating as a result of Democrats\u2019 reckless spending.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s not a Republican talking point.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a fact with which Democrat economists agree.\n\n\u201cYet the Biden-Harris administration and congressional Democrats show no signs of backing off their reckless tax and spending agenda.\n\n\u201cIn fact, it\u2019s clear they envision a lot more of the same.\n\n\u201cThe administration\u2019s latest budget request is filled with burdensome new taxes and trillions in new spending.\n\n\u201cThey want to see the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire, which would mean more tax increases.\n\n\u201cAnd Democrats still have plenty of other tax and spending ideas they would like to implement.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the American people have suffered enough.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to think about what kind of economic pain we could see from another four years of Democrats\u2019 reckless spending.\n\n\u201cAnd I hope the American people will not have to experience it.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I yield the floor.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:32:29Z"]], "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=C805872B-3EBE-444B-91CA-E0CE00993790"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.2263280805200338, "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"}