HURON – Despite the turmoil and swirl of the daily news cycle in Washington, D.C. – a place he jokingly refers to as Disneyland East – Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the Senate is addressing the country’s priorities like tax relief, infrastructure improvements, autonomous vehicles and a new Farm Bill.
“I know it’s easy to get kind of frustrated and a little bit cynical, but I always remind people that behind the scenes there’s a lot of things that are getting done,” he said Thursday.
With the Senate in recess this week, Thune provided a Washington update at a luncheon hosted by the Huron Chamber & Visitors Bureau in conjunction with the Huron Kiwanis Club.
As he travels the state, he said the issue he hears the most about is a workforce shortage impacting many businesses and industries.
“That’s an issue that I think we have to continue to focus on, especially as the economy continues to pick up,” Thune said.
Congressional action just before Christmas to pass the first tax reform bill in 30 years is providing the necessary incentives for large and small businesses to invest in the United States, he said.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, for example, told Thune in his Senate office that his company is bringing $250 billion back to the country as a result of changes in the tax code.
“I think you’re going to see more of that, another wave of that coming,” Thune said.
“One of the things we were missing out on is we were losing a lot of businesses to other countries because our tax code was not competitive,” he said.
Thune said he wants to see a ripple effect of higher wages for South Dakotans.
“We all know it’s a good place to live, but we also want to make sure it’s a good place to make a living,” he said.
A $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill that President Trump has championed is unlikely, but Thune said there are still a number of options involving smaller, piece-meal projects.
Trump has talked about a plan that would include $200 billion in public funds and the balance with a public-private partnership.
“Even to get the $200 billion in public monies would take a significant increase in some of the fuel tax, and there’s just no political appetite in doing that,” Thune said.
As chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, he said he sees opportunities within the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill as well as a rural broadband bill he introduced with the goal of making sure rural areas have access to high-speed internet.
“That to me, too, is an important form of infrastructure because we want to make sure that the people who live in the country have access to the kinds of technology that people in the more populated areas do as well,” Thune said.
The committee reported a bill out earlier this year dealing with autonomous vehicles and is awaiting action in the full Senate.
Thune had the chance to go for rides in one of the vehicles on the freeways around the nation’s capital.
“All the car companies from General Motors to Ford to Toyota are aggressively moving in this direction,” he said. “It is amazing technology.”
Congress will also be working with all of the technology companies who are developing vehicles of their own to make sure there’s a regulatory framework in place for safety, he said.
People may not realize all of the benefits the autonomous vehicles will provide, from mobility to ride sharing as well as the convenience and economic standpoints, he said.
“But the most important one is safety,” he said. “There are 37,000 people killed every year on America’s highways,” Thune said. “Ninety-four percent of those are human error.
“If you could take some of the human error out of the equation, there are thousands of lives that could be saved on the highways every year,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said work is under way on a new Farm Bill. It will be particularly difficult with the fifth year of historically low commodity prices, he said.
A member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, he said he doesn’t want the September 30 deadline to come and go without passage of a new bill because so much has changed in the last five years.
“There’s a lot of stress out there in farm country, so it’s really important that we get the Farm Bill right, that we get it done on time,” Thune said.
Drafting new bills is always challenging, not because of a partisan fight but because of a regional one.
“There’s only so much money to go around. And everybody’s competing for the same amount of money.”
PHOTO BY ROGER LARSEN/PLAINSMAN Republican Senator John Thune visits with a group of Thursday’s Kiwanis Club meeting, including members of the Huron School District, Carr Chiropractic Clinic and others prior to updating the community on happenings in the nation’s capitol.
