{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=DBD8DF2C-6793-4984-BC13-D2D939247040", "Thune: Democrats\u2019 Heavy-Handed, Government-Knows-Best Strategy Has Failed South Dakotans", "2022-08-06", "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", "Clickhere to watch the video.\n\nU.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today discussed how the Democrats\u2019 so-called \u201cInflation Reduction Act\u201d would do nothing to reduce inflation and how it would double down on wasteful government spending and impose hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes on American businesses. Thune noted that these tax hikes would result in higher prices for consumers in nearly every income bracket.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, we\u2019re somehow continuing to consider Democrats\u2019 grab bag of bad ideas \u2013 otherwise known (misleadingly) as the Inflation Reduction Act.\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s start with the bill\u2019s title.\n\n\u201cIt gets you feeling hopeful, doesn\u2019t it?\n\n\u201cThe Inflation Reduction Act.\n\n\u201cIt sounds like a bill that\u2019s going to address perhaps the number-one problem facing our nation: inflation.\n\n\u201cAnd then you actually look at the bill\u2019s contents \u2026 and discover that the bill will do nothing to reduce inflation.\n\n\u201cNothing.\n\n\u201cAnd you don\u2019t have to take my word for it.\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s what the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model had to say about the bill\u2019s impact on inflation: \u2018The impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Statistically indistinguishable from zero.\n\n\u201cThe nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also found that the bill would do nothing to address our current inflation crisis.\n\n\u201cSo did the Tax Foundation.\n\n\u201cSo much for inflation reduction.\n\n\u201cSo what about the deficit reduction Democrats are touting?\n\n\u201cWell, unfortunately there\u2019s a good chance there won\u2019t be much of that either.\n\n\u201cDemocrats rely on some very shady accounting to reach their supposed deficit reduction number \u2013 most notably counting $120 billion in savings from the repeal of a rule that has never been implemented \u2013 and at this point was not expected to be.\n\n\u201cMr. President, no matter what this rule was predicted to cost, if it was never going to be implemented its cost was effectively $0 \u2013 and so repealing this rule leaves you with exactly zero extra dollars to spend \u2013 not $120 billion.\n\n\u201cThen there\u2019s the question of the bill\u2019s expanded Obamacare subsidies.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 bill extends the expanded Obamacare subsidies by three years.\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s common knowledge that Democrats want to extend them permanently \u2013 as the president explicitly said in his State of the Union address.\n\n\u201cAnd when you figure in the cost of extending them permanently, most of the purported cost savings in the bill \u2013 which Democrats claim will go toward deficit reduction \u2013 dwindle away.\n\n\u201cSo no inflation reduction. An extremely doubtful amount of deficit reduction.\n\n\u201cWhat else?\n\n\u201cWell, there are the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes.\n\n\u201cYes, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cHundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes.\n\n\u201cOur economy has posted two consecutive quarters of negative growth \u2013 in fact by any common definition we are now in a recession \u2013 and Democrats think now is a good time to hike taxes.\n\n\u201cOn businesses.\n\n\u201cBusinesses that are already struggling with 40-year-high inflation.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 book minimum tax, as proposed last week, would be a $313 billion tax hike, with roughly half of the increase falling on American manufacturers.\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 the version of the bill Democrats introduced last week would reduce real gross domestic product by more than $68 billion and result in more than 218,000 fewer workers in the overall economy.\n\n\u201cThe Tax Foundation also found that the bill would \u2013 unsurprisingly \u2013 reduce economic growth, reduce wages, and reduce jobs.\n\n\u201cIn short, a big part of the burden of Democrats\u2019 tax hike on businesses would fall on American families and American workers.\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, the book minimum tax on American businesses isn\u2019t the only tax hike Democrats are proposing in this bill.\n\n\u201cThey also just reportedly replaced a $14 billion tax hike on investment with a new, $74 billion stock buyback tax designed to punish investors who choose to keep their own money invested in a business \u2013 a tax hike that will likely discourage new investment and have a negative impact on Americans\u2019 retirement savings.\n\n\u201cAnd, of course, they\u2019ve included a number of taxes and fees on oil and gas production.\n\n\u201cI guess Democrats would like our current sky-high energy prices to continue long term.\n\n\u201cBecause I\u2019m at a loss for any other reason why Democrats would choose to hike taxes on oil and gas production at a time when Americans are already struggling with high gas prices and high utility bills.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats didn\u2019t always think raising taxes during a recession was a good idea.\n\n\u201cIn fact, President Obama once said, \u201c[T]he last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr as the current Democrat leader once put it, \u201cYou don\u2019t want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.\u201d\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, now that their Green New Deal fantasies are on the line, Democrats have changed their tune.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s right, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are hiking taxes during a recession not to address our border crisis, or inflation, or rising crime, but so that they can implement their Green New Deal agenda.\n\n\u201cTheir so-called Inflation Reduction Act is chock-full of Green New Deal spending.\n\n\u201cThings like $1.5 billion \u2013 billion \u2013 for a grant program to plant trees.\n\n\u201c$1 billion for electric heavy-duty vehicles like garbage trucks.\n\n\u201c$3 billion for the U.S. Postal Service to purchase zero-emission delivery vehicles.\n\n\u201cAnd $1.9 billion for things like road equity and identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage.\n\n\u201cYes, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are apparently willing to send us into a longer-term recession \u2013 or stagflation \u2013 in order to provide billions of dollars for things like road equity and identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage.\n\n\u201cAll told, Democrats provide more than $60 billion in this bill for \u2018environmental justice.\u2019\n\n\u201c$60 billion.\n\n\u201cTo put that number in perspective, that\u2019s more than the federal government spent on highways in 2019.\n\n\u201cThe bill also contains at least $30 billion in climate slush funds \u2013 part of which is allocated for, among other things, climate-related political activity.\n\n\u201cYes, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cClimate-related political activity.\n\n\u201cSomehow I don\u2019t think families struggling with ballooning grocery bills and the high price of gas are eager to see their tax dollars going to Green New Deal activism.\n\n\u201cBut apparently Democrats disagree.\n\n\u201cAnd I haven\u2019t even talked about the tax credits and rebates Democrats\u2019 bill would provide for wealthy Americans to purchase new electric vehicles \u2013 or remodel their kitchens with Democrat-approved green appliances.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I could go on for a while here.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to squeeze all of the bad ideas in Democrats\u2019 bill into just one floor speech.\n\n\u201cI haven\u2019t mentioned the socialist-style price controls Democrats\u2019 bill would impose on prescription drugs \u2013 price controls that would result in fewer new drugs and treatments.\n\n\u201cOr the additional $80 billion \u2013 yes, Mr. President, $80 billion \u2013 that Democrats\u2019 bill would give to the IRS \u2013 the majority of it to boost IRS audits.\n\n\u201cMore than $45 billion of that money would go to IRS enforcement.\n\n\u201c$45 billion. Or 57 percent.\n\n\u201cWant to know how much of that $80 billion would go to taxpayer services?\n\n\u201cFour percent.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this is an agency that only succeeded in answering about one out of every 50 taxpayer phone calls during the 2021 tax season.\n\n\u201cAnd yet Democrats are focused not on improving taxpayer services, but on boosting the number of IRS audits.\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, no one should be deceived into thinking these increased audits will fall solely on millionaires and billionaires.\n\n\u201cNo matter what Democrats \u2013 and some officials at the IRS \u2013 conveniently claim, the fact of the matter is that it\u2019s exceedingly unlikely that Democrats will be able to collect the revenue they want to collect from increased IRS enforcement without auditing small businesses and ordinary taxpayers.\n\n\u201cIn fact, based 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\u201cMr. President, almost 18 months ago now, Democrats passed a massive, partisan, $1.9 trillion spending spree.\n\n\u201cAmericans are still struggling with the resulting inflation crisis.\n\n\u201cThis new tax-and-spending spree is yet another terrible economic idea from Democrats.\n\n\u201cAnd like the so-called American Rescue Plan before it, it will leave our economy \u2013 and the American people \u2013 worse off.\n\n\u201cFor their sake, I hope Democrats will think better of this bill before it\u2019s too late.", 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=DBD8DF2C-6793-4984-BC13-D2D939247040"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8794117495417595, "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"}