Rushmore State News

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) appeared on The Ben Shapiro Show to discuss recent legislative efforts and their impact on working Americans. During the interview, Thune highlighted the tax benefits for middle-income families under a new bill.

“I would say that … working Americans, middle-income families are the biggest winners. Those that make under $50,000 get the biggest proportionate tax break in all of this … with an increase in the child tax credit, standard deduction, both of those being made permanent; lower rates getting locked in, made permanent.

“And so if you take a family, for example, in my state of South Dakota, average family, if we hadn’t acted at the end of the year, they’d be facing a $2,500 tax increase. And as it is, they’re going to be facing lower taxes and … keeping more of what they earn so they can provide for themselves and their families … instead of sending the money to Washington, D.C.

“So I think the tax pieces of this … no tax on tips, no tax on overtime … are huge wins for … working Americans, and we created a big bonus deduction for seniors, so lower taxes for people who are on Social Security.”

Thune also described other aspects of the legislation. “It was a very sweeping piece of legislation that addressed border security, addressed modernizing our military, energy dominance, the tax pieces I mentioned. Then the other thing is, it was historic in terms of the savings that we were able to achieve. And … for the first time since I’ve been in Washington, we did something serious and meaningful about starting to rein in the runaway cost of our entitlement programs and getting rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse in a lot of those programs. So a trillion and a half in savings there … that’s historic.

“There’s school choice that was included in there. Obviously we were able to do something on taxpayer funding of abortions in this legislation. I mean … this was a very comprehensive piece of legislation that included a lot of President Trump’s agenda.”

Addressing criticism from Democrats regarding Medicaid changes under recent reforms, Thune stated: “[T]hese are commonsense reforms and reforms that I think when the American people hear about it, they say, ‘Well, that makes sense.’ I’ve seen polling that suggests 72 percent of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, support work requirements.”

He continued by criticizing some states’ handling of provider taxes and state-directed payments: “There have been states [that] really abused the issue of provider taxes, state-directed payments. And great examples of that … are New York and California, where they’ve used those types of things to cover illegals, people who shouldn’t be on Medicaid in the first place.

“Democrats … they’re going to lie about this because that’s what they do particularly on the issue of health care … Medicaid is going to continue to grow in terms of just the rate of inflation over time. It’s just not going to grow at the 50 or 60 percent that it’s grown at in the last five years.

“We’re slowing the rate of growth not cutting it but doing it in a way that gets rid of waste fraud and abuse in the program and restores the program to people for whom it was intended. And those are low-income seniors those are pregnant moms those are disabled people – instead of able-bodied adults that states have been adding to get more federal money 90 percent federal match.”

Thune also discussed President Trump’s foreign policy approach: “[T]he president … sees the world … in a very clear-eyed way and realizes that America’s got to be a leader in that world. And I think what he did with NATO was really important because it’s not American tax dollars you know taxpayers who’d be paying for this. It’s going to be NATO countries but it’s American weaponry and we have most sophisticated high-tech and lethal weaponry in world.”

He added: “I think [the president] realizes relationship partnership we have with NATO was really important not only United States but entire West. And I think leadership courage he’s shown with respect what he did with Iran too was truly remarkable. And again another example deterrence is back Peace through strength is back.

“People around world notice that What he did how flawlessly campaign executed ... Iran I think message all adversaries out there America is ... here play And I think message sent loudly clearly.”