{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=CEFE61EE-6418-467E-832F-4296C7136877", "Thune: \u201cBidenomics\u201d = Bidenflation", "2023-09-06", "2023", "2023-09", "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 South Dakotans are facing as a result of \u201cBidenomics.\u201d Thune noted that American taxpayers are footing the bill for President Biden\u2019s big-government, big-spending agenda that has consisted of higher taxes, record-high inflation rates, and handouts to special interest groups.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, we recently passed the first anniversary of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.\n\n\u201cAnd despite the White House\u2019s showy anniversary celebration, this legislation is not aging well.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not exactly a surprise, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cIt was clear from the beginning that this bill had problems.\n\n\u201cIt was called the Inflation Reduction Act, yet even before the bill had been signed into law, the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model was noting that the bill\u2019s impact on inflation was, quote, \u2018statistically indistinguishable from zero.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn other words, the Inflation Reduction Act \u2026 would do nothing to reduce inflation.\n\n\u201cEven President Biden has essentially admitted that the bill\u2019s name was misleading.\n\n\u201cIt was also clear from the outset that the bill\u2019s claims of deficit reduction were extremely shaky, relying on accounting gimmicks and fuzzy math.\n\n\u201cThen of course there were the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes on American businesses \u2013 rarely a strategy that produces economic growth or benefits for working Americans.\n\n\u201cThere was a massive funding infusion to the IRS, focused not on improving taxpayer services but on increasing audits to help fund Democrats\u2019 Green New Deal agenda.\n\n\u201cAnd more.\n\n\u201cThe best that could be said for the Inflation Reduction Act when it passed \u2013 which isn\u2019t much \u2013 was that it was less damaging than the staggering multi-trillion-dollar spending spree Democrats had originally tried to implement \u2013 their so-called Build Back Better Act.\n\n\u201cSo it\u2019s not exactly a surprise that the Inflation Reduction Act isn\u2019t aging well, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s become clear over the past year that the bill is even worse than it appeared originally.\n\n\u201cIt was already an expensive piece of legislation, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cBut the bill\u2019s costs have ballooned alarmingly.\n\n\u201cThe bill\u2019s Green New Deal provisions, which were originally projected to cost around $400 billion, are now expected to cost somewhere in the range of $660 billion to more than $1 trillion.\n\n\u201cLet me just repeat that, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThe bill\u2019s Green New Deal provisions, which were originally projected to cost around $400 billion, are now expected to cost somewhere in the range of $660 billion to more than $1 trillion.\n\n\u201cIf Democrats\u2019 deficit reduction claims for this bill were shaky before, they are really shaky now.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not hard to imagine that the steep increase in the bill\u2019s costs could mean that it ends up adding to the deficit, instead of reducing it.\n\n\u201cAnd now it has emerged that some of the biggest beneficiaries of the bill\u2019s green energy subsidies are not American companies, but foreign companies.\n\n\u201cNot only that, billion-dollar companies are expected to receive the lion\u2019s share of the bill\u2019s green energy tax subsidies.\n\n\u201cIronic for a president who claims he wants to make big companies \u2018pay their fair share.\u2019\n\n\u201cIt also turns out that the bill\u2019s provisions are actually driving up the cost of green energy projects \u2026 and inflating the cost of project materials and labor.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s no wonder that President Biden recently said of the Inflation Reduction Act, \u2018I wish I hadn\u2019t called it that.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, I haven\u2019t even mentioned other aspects of this legislation, like the bill\u2019s price controls for prescription drugs, which will curtail medical innovation and the development of new medications.\n\n\u201cWhen the Biden administration originally proposed this policy, research from the University of Chicago projected that price controls on prescription drugs in Medicare would result in 135 fewer new drugs available to patients.\n\n\u201cNow we are seeing those projections come to fruition as multiple drug companies have indicated they are halting research into new treatments for cancer and other diseases as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act.\n\n\u201cMr. President, President Biden has been spending a lot of time recently talking about his economic philosophy \u2013 or lack thereof \u2013 which he has taken to calling \u2018Bidenomics.\u2019\n\n\u201cAccording to the White House, it\u2019s a philosophy based on, and I quote, \u2018growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up \u2013 while also spending responsibly.\u2019\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a nice-sounding vision, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cBut it has little to do with economic reality in the Biden administration.\n\n\u201cThe so-called American Rescue Plan Act \u2013 the massive Democrat spending spree that helped plunge our economy into a two-year-plus inflation crisis \u2013 is proof enough that \u201cspending responsibly\u201d is not exactly the modus operandi for Democrats and President Biden.\n\n\u201cAnd as for \u2018growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up\u2019 \u2013 well, if the president really thinks he\u2019s doing that, I have a nice piece of oceanfront property in South Dakota to sell him.\n\n\u201cIn fact, Mr. President, it\u2019s lower- and middle-income Americans who have suffered the most in the Biden economy.\n\n\u201cPrices have increased by more than 16 percent since the president took office \u2013 by more than 20 percent for groceries.\n\n\u201cAnd inflation is costing the average household more than $900 more per month.\n\n\u201c$900.\n\n\u201cPer month.\n\n\u201cShow me a working family who finds that affordable.\n\n\u201cBidenomics, according to the president, is supposed to be about lifting up working families.\n\n\u201cBut in reality working families in the Biden economy are struggling just to get by.\n\n\u201cA grim line in a news story the other day noted, and I quote, \u2018With 60% of people in the United States living paycheck to paycheck, households are turning to credit cards and retirement savings as lifelines.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018With 60% of people in the United States living paycheck to paycheck, households are turning to credit cards and retirement savings as lifelines.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat, Mr. President, is the reality of life under Bidenomics.\n\n\u201cBut you only need to listen to one of the president\u2019s speeches to know that the president isn\u2019t overly troubled by economic reality.\n\n\u201cLately the president has been taking credit for the recent moderation in the inflation rate.\n\n\u201cThat takes a lot of gall, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like punching a hole in a boat and then taking credit for rescuing the occupants from drowning.\n\n\u201cExcept that in this case the president isn\u2019t even doing the rescuing.\n\n\u201cThe rate of inflation has slowed in spite of the White House, not because of it.\n\n\u201cIn fact, if the president had had his way, Congress would have passed a lot more reckless spending \u2013 and inflation would likely have gotten even worse.\n\n\u201cAs it is, Americans are having to deal not only with the ongoing effects of Democrats\u2019 self-inflicted inflation crisis, but with the steep rate hikes the Federal Reserve has imposed to dig us out of Democrats\u2019 inflation mess.\n\n\u201cThese rate hikes have made borrowing more expensive, putting the dream of homeownership or necessities like replacing an aging car out of reach for more Americans.\n\n\u201cAnd there may be more economic pain on the way if Democrats have their way.\n\n\u201cThe Senate Democrat leader recently promised \u2013 or perhaps I should say threatened \u2013 to pass an even bigger Green New Deal bill than the Inflation Reduction Act if Democrats regain full control of Washington in the next election.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t even want to think about how much that kind of legislation could cost taxpayers \u2013 or what damage that kind of legislation could do to our economy.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the president can talk all he wants about Bidenomics as building the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.\n\n\u201cTo Americans who have lived under the Biden economy, Bidenomics means something very different.\n\n\u201cPerhaps the president should check in with the 58 percent of voters who say the economy has gotten worse over the past two years before he gives his next celebratory speech.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I yield the floor.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", 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