Thune Joins Bret Baier on Fox News

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WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined Bret Baier on Fox News.

On Senate Republicans' accomplishments:

"The things that we did in the … [Working] Family Tax Cuts Act that was passed earlier this year are … really unprecedented and historic. You think about no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, reducing taxes for seniors on Social Security, locking in lower rates, the doubling of the child tax credit, near doubling of the standard deduction …

"I think you're going to see a remarkable 2026. I mean, we're excited about the prospects for the economy, and you look at the things we did and the other things in the One Big Beautiful Bill … the school choice, child care tax credits, the newborn tax credits, or these accounts that are going to be created for people in this country. These are all pro-family initiatives that we think are going to start to yield big dividends."

On Republicans' pro-growth policies:

"[T]he president … he inherited this mess - [from] the Biden administration with … all the spending that they did, trillions and trillions of dollars of spending, which flooded our economy with more dollars, which drove inflation up."

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"[T]hose steps that we took last summer, you're going to start to see that, and the American people are going to start to feel that. When you start seeing the impact of what we did on taxes and regulations and energy, and you're already seeing the cost of gasoline going down. You're going to see that in other areas …

"Inflation, which … in the month of October was … down to 2.7 percent … down from what was expected. You're starting to see that already. But I also think you're going to see more growth in the economy because of the policy changes that we made.

"And when economy is growing and expanding, it's throwing off better-paying jobs, people are doing better … I think what you're going to see in 2026 is safer streets, you're going to see more money in people's pockets, and you're going to see new opportunities to get ahead for the American people."

On Republicans' plan to lower health care costs:

"The Democrats are going to have to come to the table and realize that a straight extension of Obamacare subsidies is not a sustainable future for the American people … Democrats talk about affordability. The least affordable thing that the American people have … in front of them today is the cost of health care …

"[Republicans are] open to fixing and addressing this, but you've got to do it in a way … that actually solves the problem and lowers costs. If you stay on this path right now, with all the waste, fraud, and abuse, the same thing is true today that I said last September - and that is that there are no income caps, there are zero-dollar premiums, there are literally millions of people in the exchange who don't even know they're covered because the payments go directly from the federal government to the insurance companies, and so people are automatically, they're auto-enrolled by the insurance companies, and there's no accountability in this program.

"The Government Accountability Office just did an audit of this program, and of the 20 fake claims they submitted, 19 of them got approved. That's a 95 percent failure rate. So it's got to be reformed, and we're open to that, and if the Democrats want to work with us, we won't get it done before the Christmas holiday, but when we come back in January, there are discussions that are going on right now. We have folks who are interested in fixing it."

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