#sen. john thune

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The vast majority of the Senate Republican caucus united last week to introduce a bill that would permanently repeal the estate tax, targeting one of the few provisions in the U.S. tax code that solely affects the richest 0.1% of Americans.

Led by Sen. John Thune (South Dakota), the top Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and Internal Revenue Service Oversight, 40 Republicans reintroduced their bill to ensure that ultra-rich individuals seeking to hand off tens of millions of dollars — or more — to their heirs can do so completely tax-free. The extremely regressive proposal has been a longtime goal of Republicans, who have already massively watered down the estate tax in past years.

Currently, the estate tax threshold is $12.9 million, and nearly $26 million for couples. Amounts under this are exempted from taxes. This is nearly triple the threshold from 2016 and earlier, as Republicans more than doubled the estate tax cutoff in their major tax overhaul in 2017. The threshold is now so high that it is estimated that less than 0.1% of Americans are subject to the tax.

Evidently, these tax cuts are still not enough for Republicans, who had tried to repeal the tax altogether in 2017. In a press release on the bill, Thune, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) attempted to couch their support of the repeal in efforts to supposedly support farmers — claims that reveal themselves to be a farce when more closely examined.

“For years I have fought to protect farm and ranch families from the onerous and unfair death tax,” Thune said. “Family-owned farms and ranches often bear the brunt of this tax, which makes it difficult and costly to pass these businesses down to future generations.”

Thune’s statement is a misrepresentation of the truth. The vast, vast majority of “family-owned farms” are not subject to the estate tax. In 2020, a mere 0.16% of farm estates owed the tax, according to data from the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This is an exceedingly small number of farms. As the Tax Policy Center estimated, only 50 farms total paid any estate tax in 2017, and this research was done before lawmakers doubled the threshold.

The criticism of the estate tax in defense of farmers is disingenuous for another reason, as Inequality.org pointed out in a blog post this week. The tax code “already has provisions that protect the very few families with farms and businesses subject to estate tax,” wrote Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow and senior adviser for Patriotic Millionaires Bob Lord. “If the bill sponsors truly cared about family farms, ranches, and businesses, they could have proposed legislation to expand these protections but leave the estate tax intact.”

In reality, deep-pocketed lobbyists with the Farm Bureau have long been pushing a repeal of the estate tax — and the group’s deep ties to big business and Wall Street are well documented.

Perhaps not coincidentally, repealing the estate tax would complete the loop of tax avoidance for the wealthiest Americans. The bill targets the “die” part of “buy borrow die,” a common tax dodging scheme used by the wealthy to avoid paying taxes; it is part of the reason that the wealthiest Americans are able to pay little to no taxes year over year.

In the practice of buying, borrowing, and dying, the rich first pour their wealth into assets like stocks, building up a large portfolio. Those assets are then used as collateral for taking out large loans with low interest rates — lower than, say, the income tax rate — that become a wealthy person’s spending money. Then, they die, and hand off their wealth to the next generation, maintaining their dynasty for decades to come.

At very few points do taxes come into the buy, borrow, die equation. Buying and keeping stocks doesn’t incur a tax bill. Taking out loans allows the wealthy to claim very low incomes to skirt income taxes. The estate tax is essentially the only guarantee, and even then, the wealthy have come up with extreme loopholes to dodge the estate tax, too. Republicans, then, are hoping to make tax avoidance even easier by legalizing it entirely; Lord has pointedly labeled the bill the “Billionaires Pay Zero Tax Act.”

The proposal stands in sharp contrast to progressives’ views on taxation. Pointing to extreme and growing wealth inequality, progressives have been calling for increasing taxes on the rich and specifically targeting their wealth and stock portfolios, rather than endlessly allowing the “buy” and “borrow” portions of the cycle.

#us politics #news #us senate #senate republicans #truthout #2023 #taxes #tax code #estate taxes #republicans #conservatives #gop #gop policy #gop platform #sen. john thune #Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and Internal Revenue Service Oversight #tax the rich #tax the 1% #tax the wealthy #tax the billionaires #sen. mitch mcconnell #Sen. Mike Crapo #family-owned farms #department of agriculture #Tax Policy Center #Economic Research Service #Inequality.org #Patriotic Millionaires #Bob Lord #Farm Bureau

[simply-ivanka]

Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Cornyn (R-TX), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Kennedy (R-LA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), John Thune (R-SD), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Todd Young (R-IN)

VOTE THESE PIECES OF SHIT OUT OF CONGRESS.

#Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) #Bill Cassidy (R-LA) #Susan Collins (R-ME) #John Cornyn (R-TX) #Joni Ernst (R-IA) #Chuck Grassley (R-IA) #John Thune (R-SD) #Thom Tillis (R-NC) #Roger Wicker (R-MS) #and Todd Young (R-IN)

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

I’ve said many times that Moscow Mitch would be replace by one of his two henchmen, Thune or Cornyn. They’re both old school Republicans, oligarch puppets, but they aren’t deranged MAGA cultists. A small distinction as one group will impoverish using the system while the other will extra-legally slaughter us in the streets.

#republican assholes #John Thune #Moscow Bitch #Bitch McConnell #republican values #maga morons #resist #never Trump

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dartagnan at Daily Kos:

As anti-Israel protests have spread across many of the country’s most prestigious college campuses this week, several Republicans in Congress have sought to burnish their pro-Israel credentials by calling for the U.S. military to respond.  Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton exhorted President Joe Biden to send in National Guard units, while obliquely encouraging motorists to run over protestors. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley similarly demanded a militarized federal response “to protect Jewish Americans,” while Mitch McConnell and John Thune penned a letter, signed by 25 of their fellow GOP senators, calling the demonstrators “anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist mobs” and demanding that “federal law enforcement” respond.

Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson paid a visit to Columbia University’s campus on Wednesday where he was greeted by catcalls and boos. Upon leaving, Johnson also declared he would be demanding that Biden deploy the National Guard to quell the protests if they continued.  As Adam Serwer, writing for the Atlantic, observes, these reflexive calls by Republicans for a military response to protests seem to be less rooted in genuine concern that the protests pose a serious danger to the public or Jewish people than “because these powerful figures find the protesters and their demands offensive.” Serwer points out that school administrators have, when necessary, called in local police to address potential violence, harassment, and property damage, and thus far, the protests do not evince the kind of “mass violence and unrest” that would normally suggest the need for federal involvement. He also notes that such a deployment of federal troops would likely escalate the protests. 

Without debating the relative merits or lack thereof of the protests themselves, then, it’s important to note that these demands for a federal militarized response are coming almost entirely from one side of the political aisle. As Serwer points out, they echo the same sentiments Republicans expressed in 2020 in response to the protests by Black Lives Matter over the police murder of George Floyd. 

In other words, thus far we have seen a markedly asymmetrical, political response by Republicans to  campus protests this week. But we are also witnessing something else: an explicit acceptance of a militarized solution to protests where Republicans find it politically advantageous. Notably, another well-known Republican has also proposed sending the U.S. military and National Guard units to quell anticipated public protests, albeit of a far different nature, should he be afforded another term in office. That person is Donald Trump, and the people he proposes to target are those Americans he suspects would turn out in the hundreds of thousands to protest the policies he intends to implement.

Prominent Republicans such as Tom Cotton, Donald Trump, and Mike Johnson are demanding a militaristic response to end the pro-Palestinian protests across the nation's campuses as a way of burnishing their pro-Israel Apartheid bona fides.

Such a response would further escalate protests instead of quell them.

See Also:

Vox: Student protests are testing US colleges’ commitment to free speech

The Nation: The Crackdown on Campus Protests Is Happening Everywhere

#Ceasefire NOW Protests #Colleges #Ceasefire #Ceasefire NOW #Israel/Hamas War Protests #Israel #Israel Apartheid #Palestine #Gaza #Tom Cotton #Donald Trump #Mike Johnson #John Thune #Mitch McConnell #Josh Hawley #National Guard #Project 2025 #Protests

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[mariacallous]

A lot of people were surprised two weeks ago when Donald Trump started posting on social media about trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I certainly was.

The attempt to wipe out “Obamacare” in 2017 was one of his administration’s most spectacular policy failures, and one of its most damaging political failures too. The backlash to the unpopular effort was a big reason Democrats took back the House in 2018. Two years later, it helped put Joe Biden in the White House, while giving Democrats a narrow hold on the Senate as well. A sensible, thoughtful politician mindful of that experience would do everything to avoid the subject altogether. Or, if they were truly committed to the repeal cause out of principle, they would return to it only after developing a well-considered strategy to succeed where the last attempt failed.

Suffice to say it does not appear Trump did that.

The likely backstory, according to a report in Politico, is that a Wall Street Journal editorial on the Affordable Care Act “piqued his frustration” with the program, enough that he decided to post on Truth Social that he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to Obamacare and imploring fellow Republicans to “never give up” on trying to get rid of the law.

Trump’s own advisers didn’t seem to expect the post, based on the Politico story, and Republicans in Congress certainly didn’t. In the days that followed, they made clear their reluctance to try repeal again ― in no small part, I’m sure, because so many of them were around last time and remember how that all turned out.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican and senior Finance Committee member, told a local radio station that “I don’t hear any Republicans talking about it.” His GOP colleague from South Dakota, Majority Whip John Thune, offered similar thoughts to Politico: “Boy, I haven’t thought about that one in a while.” Translation: “Are you f**king kidding me?” Their ambivalence makes even more sense given that repealing the Affordable Care Act now would likely be more difficult than it was in 2017, when the then-fledgling program’s widely publicized implementation problems ― like the catastrophic rollout of the HealthCare.gov online shopping site, or insurers pulling out of markets because they were losing so much money ― made it an easy target for political attacks.

Six years later, the website works great, insurers have figured out how to offer a profitable product and the markets are stable. People buying coverage on their own can have access to lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs because Biden and the Democrats have added to the program’s financial assistance.

That’s one reason that, relative to 2017, even more people are getting insurance through the program. Another is that voters in conservative states like Idaho and Missouri have since approved Medicaid expansions that their state Republican officials had been blocking, adding hundreds of thousands to the long list of Americans with something to lose if Obamacare goes away.

In short, the program is a lot more entrenched than it was before ― and, as the polls show, a lot more popular too. Just this week, a new Navigator survey found support for the Affordable Care Act at 61%. That’s the highest the poll ever recorded, and consistent with findings from the KFF monthly poll, which has been tracking support for the Affordable Care Act since it first became law in 2010. All of that makes it tempting to dismiss the threat of repeal ― and significance of the issue more generally. But that would be a mistake.

[dhaaruni]

🔥 re: the Dems (in general or a specific Dem politician on your radar, whatever lol)

Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) is very cool, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is the hottest senator, and most Democratic senators are a lot more moderate than people believe on the filibuster and on issues and hide their positions so they won't get harassed and followed into bathroom. It's not just Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema!!

#answered #anonymous #politics #ask meme

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suddenly stopped speaking during a weekly Republican leadership news conference Wednesday afternoon, appearing to freeze, and then went silent and was walked away.

McConnell, R-Ky., had been making his opening remarks about an annual defense policy bill when he stopped talking. He was silent for 19 seconds. His Republican colleagues asked whether he was OK, and a top McConnell deputy, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a physician, escorted McConnell, 81, away from the cameras and reporters.

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa made a hand gesture that initially appeared to resemble the sign of the cross. Her office later clarified that she was motioning for Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota.

A few minutes later, McConnell walked back to the news conference by himself. Asked about his health, he said he was fine. Asked whether he is fully able to do his job, he said, "Yeah."

Asked about the episode, an aide pointed to McConnell’s saying, “I’m fine,” but the aide added that McConnell “felt lightheaded and stepped away for a moment.”

"He came back to handle Q&A, which as everyone observed was sharp," the aide said.

McConnell spoke to reporters briefly Wednesday night as he left the Capitol and said, "The President called to check on me."

"I told him I got sandbagged," he joked.

A White House official and a spokesperson for the Senator confirmed that President Joe Biden and McConnell spoke by phone Wednesday.

Asked by reporters how he was feeling, McConnell said, "I'm fine." He did not directly answer what happened earlier in the day or whether he saw a doctor.

McConnell tripped and fell March 8 after an event for the Senate Leadership Fund — a Republican super PAC aligned with McConnell and GOP leadership — at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington. He was hospitalized with a concussion and a minor rib fracture and was discharged March 13 before he entered rehab.

He didn't return to the Senate, however, until mid-April.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told NBC News on Wednesday that he met with McConnell after the Senate GOP leadership news conference for a regularly scheduled meeting "to catch up on both houses."

"He was good," McCarthy said. "There was no concerns about his health in the meeting."

McConnell has served in the Senate since 1985. He isn't up for re-election until the 2026 midterm elections.

#us politics #news #nbc news #republicans #conservatives #sen. mitch mcconnell #kentucky #2023 #tweet #twitter #Sen. Joni Ernst #Sen. John Barrasso #sen. john thune #rep. kevin mccarthy

[muddypolitics]

(via GOP Senators Say The Real Problem With Trump Is His Bad Staff)

Seven years into the Trump era, and we’re still getting this kind of nonsense from sitting U.S. senators: Whose fault was it that Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West? Certainly not Trump’s! It was poor staffing!

Sen. John Thune (R-SD): “That’s just a bad idea on every level. I don’t know who was advising him on his staff but I hope that whoever that person was got fired.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): “If the reports are true and the president didn’t know who he was, whoever let him in the room should be fired.”

A guy whose political career was launched by the catchphrase “You’re fired!” is the victim of his own failure to fire bad staff. Amazing.

For the most credulous audience, this dance lets the senator sidestep any direct criticism of Trump while still handwringing and looking serious.

For the rest of us, the senators look like duplicitous boobs.

the party of taking responsibility takes NO responsibility

#politics #GOP blames everything #but maga-king

[tearsinthemist]

[truck-fump]

No. 2 Senate Republican endorses <b>Trump</b> for president | CNN Politics

New Post has been published on https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/politics/john-thune-donald-trump-endorsement/index.html&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjUzM2UwMTY5ZmFhZTIwMGQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw0nelx_RwYnQdRHab_oY4mw

No. 2 Senate Republican endorses Trump for president | CNN Politics

GOP Sen. John Thune, the number two Republican in the Senate, is endorsing former President Donald Trump as the party’s nominee, …

#Uncategorized

[mariacallous]

Senate Republicans blocked aid for Israel and Ukraine from advancing in a key vote on Wednesday in protest over a dispute about border security policy, a clash that threatens to derail passage of the foreign aid.

The tally for the procedural vote was 49 to 51, falling short of the 60-vote threshold needed proceed. At the end of the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer switched his vote to “no” – a procedural move that will allow him to bring up the measure again in the future.

Republicans have insisted that the foreign aid must be paired with major border security policy changes. There have been talks to try to find consensus, but no bipartisan deal has been reached over the contentious issue.

The stalemate comes amid Israel’s war against Hamas and Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression. The White House issued a dire warning earlier this week that funding for Ukraine is running out and failure to secure an agreement to approve further aid will present critical national security risks.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said ahead of the vote that Republicans would block the bill when it came up for consideration because they believe it does not adequately address border security.

“Senate Republicans are going to deny cloture on a bill that doesn’t address America’s top national security priorities in a serious way. As we’ve said for weeks, legislation that does not include policy changes to secure our borders will not pass the Senate,” he said on the Senate floor.

Schumer has accused Republicans of “hostage taking” as the path to passing aid to Ukraine and Israel remains unclear.

Schumer warned on Tuesday that “without more aid from Congress, Ukraine may fall, democracy in Europe will be imperiled and those who think Vladimir Putin will stop merely at Ukraine willfully ignored the clear and unmistakable warnings of history.”

Republican senators are warning that they are on track to leave for the holidays without passing the supplemental, a stark message to their Democratic colleagues who they say aren’t serious enough about border security.

“It’s becoming more and more apparent that we are not going to be able to pass a supplemental, which I think is terrible,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, told CNN.

“If I was a betting person, right now I would say I don’t know how you land this before the holidays unless we’re here right at the very end. But, we’ll see,” Senate GOP Whip John Thune said. “Maybe all of a sudden, there will be a convergence of views about the need to get this done.”

President Joe Biden urgently called on Congress to pass aid for Ukraine in an impassioned speech on Wednesday.

“Make no mistake: today’s vote is going to be long remembered. And history is going to judge harshly those who turned their back on freedom’s cause. We can’t let Putin win,” Biden said.

Senate Democrats have released legislative text for a $110 billion security assistance package that includes funding for Israel and Ukraine and humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza, among other priorities. The bill includes border security provisions, but a bipartisan deal hasn’t been struck over the issue.

In November, the GOP-controlled House passed a bill to provide $14.3 billion in aid to Israel. Democrats, however, took issue with the bill over the fact that it would enact funding cuts to the Internal Revenue Service and that it did not include aid to Ukraine.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has also stressed the importance of border security. “Any national security package has to begin with the security of our own border,” he said at a news conference Tuesday.

[bllsbailey]

Senate Passes $95 Billion Aid for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza 70-29

The Democrat-led Senate has passed a $95.34 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza,  and Taiwan, amid growing doubts about the legislation's fate in the Republican-controlled House.

The lawmakers approved the measure in a 70-29 vote that exceeded the chamber's 60-vote threshold for passage and sent the legislation on to the House. Twenty-two Republicans joined most Democrats to support the bill.

"It's certainly been years, perhaps decades, since the Senate has passed a bill that so greatly impacts not just our national security, not just the security of our allies, but the security of western democracy," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

The legislation includes $61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel in its war against Hamas and $4.83 billion to support partners in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan, and deter aggression by China.

It would also provide $9.15 billion in humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine, and other conflict zones around the globe.

The Senate vote occurred before sunrise, after eight hardline Republican opponents of Ukraine aid held an overnight marathon of speeches that dominated the chamber floor for more than six hours.

Democrat President Joe Biden has been urging Congress to hurry the new aid to Ukraine and U.S. partners in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan, for months. After Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, he also requested funds for the U.S. ally, along with humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

Ukrainian officials have also warned of weapons shortages at a time when Russia is pressing ahead with renewed attacks.

Both houses of Congress must approve the legislation before Biden can sign it into law.

Schumer said he believes the measure would receive the same strong bipartisan support if it came to a vote in the House.

But the bill appears to face long odds of getting to the floor of the House, where Republican Speaker Mike Johnson faulted it for lacking conservative provisions to stem a record flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Dead on Arrival?

"In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters," Johnson said in a statement issued late Monday.

"America deserves better than the Senate's status quo," said Johnson, who has suggested in the past that the House could split the legislation into separate bills.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the chamber's No. 2 Republican, said it was not clear what Johnson would do.

"The House, I assume, is going to move on something. Obviously, they're going to address Israel," Thune said.

Hardline Republicans predicted that the Senate legislation would be dead on arrival in the House.

"The bill before us today ... will never pass in the House, will never become law," Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in an early morning floor speech.

Republicans have demanded for months that the foreign aid bill include border restrictions.

But a bipartisan border deal, negotiated over the course of months, ran afoul of most Senate Republicans after it was rejected by Donald Trump, the party's leading White House candidate.

Schumer stripped the border security language from the bill last week.

Trump, who hopes to use the border issue to unseat Biden in the November election, has since turned his criticism on the foreign aid bill, saying on social media that aid to U.S. allies should instead take the form of loans.

Aid to Ukraine faces powerful headwinds in the House, where Trump's interests hold greater sway with Republicans who control the chamber by a thin majority.