{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=F04CDF4E-50A9-4333-96F8-B3AE522E5D5D", "Thune Joins Larry Kudlow on Fox Business", "2025-10-06", "2025", "2025-10", "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.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Larry Kudlow on Fox Business.\n\nOn Congress\u2019 responsibility to fund the government:\n\n\u201cNobody likes shutdowns. \u2026 Nobody gains from a shutdown, Larry. But the truth is, in this case, we\u2019ve put before [Democrats] something they voted for 13 times when Biden was president and when the Democrats [had] the majority in the Senate \u2013 a short-term funding resolution to keep the government open while we consider, in this case, other appropriations bills to fund the government for the full year.\n\n\u201cThis is very straightforward, but [Democrats] have decided to hijack it and make it about everything else on their agenda, most of which is \u2026 $1.5 trillion in new spending \u2026 [and] free health care available to noncitizens. This is what they\u2019ve staked their claim on. And they\u2019re wrong \u2026\n\n\u201cHopefully the American people see through it and understand that we do have a clean funding resolution, something [Democrats] voted on 13 times in the past, and it will keep the government open.\n\n\u201cIf [Democrats] want to have a conversation about some of these other issues, I\u2019ve said we\u2019re open to that, but you\u2019ve got to open up the government first.\u201d\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 shutdown hypocrisy:\n\n\u201cI think when the impact of this shutdown starts really being felt, I believe there are some Democrats who are going to say, \u2018You know, this isn\u2019t a good position for us to be in,\u2019 and come and work with us to keep the government open \u2026\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve told [Democrats] we\u2019ll have a conversation about \u2026 the ACA tax credits. Although that, in and of itself, is another issue that the Democrats created because they put the expiration date in place. They \u2026 expanded these \u2026 tax credits, in a way that was supposed to be responsive to covid; well, covid is no longer with us. So this is a problem of their own making, and now they want us to \u2026 bail them out of this mess. But we\u2019re not going to have that conversation until the government gets opened up.\u201d\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 manufactured crisis:\n\n\u201cThe ACA tax credits are rife with fraud, waste, and abuse. They are subsidies to insurance companies \u2013 nothing more, nothing else. And there\u2019s no cap on income. I mean, you can make half a million dollars now, 600 grand in some places, and be eligible for federal assistance under this program. So it\u2019s desperately in need of reform \u2026\n\n\u201cWe want to make sure that people in this country have access to affordable health care. Obviously, people on Medicaid, Medicare \u2026 In the One Big Beautiful Bill, we made reforms to Medicaid to make sure it\u2019s there for the people who really need it. But for able-bodied adults who are gaming it and all these states who play these games and cover illegals, California being probably the best example of that, \u2026 take these provider taxes and, \u2026 get a higher FMAP from the federal government, get more federal money, and then rebate those taxes back to the providers, and then use the resources to cover illegals. That was what California was doing. That\u2019s what they got busted for.\n\n\u201cNow the Democrats, they want to put that all back in play \u2026 They\u2019re issues that \u2026 we think need to be addressed on behalf of the American people, but not in a way that is such a bad return for the American taxpayer, that actually is inflationary when it comes to health care costs and to premiums and insurance and everything else, in a way that honestly skews these programs toward people who, in the expanded population, are able-bodied adults, ought to be working, and ought to be able to get \u2026 other health care options available to them. So we\u2019re willing to have that conversation, Larry, but it doesn\u2019t fit here.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "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=F04CDF4E-50A9-4333-96F8-B3AE522E5D5D"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7178389932960272, "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"}