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U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Gillian Turner on Fox News to discuss how the Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spending spree will increase costs on American families on top of the 40-year-high inflation that is already hurting their pocketbooks.
On the Democrats’ bill failing to meaningfully address historically high inflation:
“As you pointed out, the Congressional Budget Office, which is the official scorekeeper for Congress, said [the bill] will have a negligible effect on getting, you know, battling inflation, contrary to what you just played the president saying.
“And there are lots of other budgetary models out there by nonpartisan entities that have come to the same conclusion that, in fact, it will increase inflation in the near term and do nothing to reduce it in the long term.
“So, if you're worried about inflation, if you're worried about gas prices, if you're worried about the economy generally, I think this is just a really bad bill. And I'm hoping that more Democrats are going to come to that realization, because they won't get a single Republican vote for it here in the Senate.”
On the higher costs families will face if this legislation passes:
“Well, it certainly increases rates on businesses, all of which gets passed on to consumers in this country. And the Joint Committee on Taxation, again, which is the official scorekeeper when it comes to tax and revenue issues here in Washington, has done a study and they have suggested that the burden of these tax increases will be felt the most by people making under $200,000 a year, that in fact, in 2023, this next year, people under $200,000 a year would end up paying $17 billion more [in] higher costs.
“It raises taxes on businesses, it raises taxes on oil and gas production, and even raises taxes on imported oil into this country, all of which are paid for at the pump by American consumers. So, it's loaded with tax increases.”
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“But there are lots of taxes, hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes in this, all of which get passed on and paid for in the form of lower wages or higher prices. It's as simple as that, and it's economics 101, which I don't think the Democrats fully comprehend.”