Getting “PHIT”
By Sen. John Thune
Thanks to better technology, innovative research, and greater access to information, Americans are living with more effective tools to help them pursue healthier, more active lives. These technological advancements have made it more affordable for people to own things like wearable fitness devices that help track their physical activity and other health data in real time. And with the swipe of a finger, people are using new digital platforms to find popular fitness routines or healthy recipes, or they can even sign up for a fitness class by simply opening a mobile app.
Not only has it become trendy to pursue a healthy lifestyle, but social media and other online tools have made it easier for people to connect with audiences and share ideas about how to stay fit, offer advice about how to make healthy decisions, or challenge people to get active. Whether it’s competing with friends and family to see who gets the most steps each day or tracking who completes the most workouts in a week, Americans are becoming more interested in finding new ways to achieve better health results for themselves and their families.
I strongly believe in personal responsibility and individual choices and recognize that when it comes to decisions about fitness and other preventive health routines, cost can be prohibitive for some families. Investing in preventive health is one way Congress can encourage people to make healthier choices and get active, which would help reduce the risk of costly – and sometimes deadly – chronic conditions, like obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and more.
I recently reintroduced a bipartisan bill that would encourage healthier living by treating certain sports and fitness expenses as medical care under the tax code. My bill, the Personal Health Investment Today (PHIT) Act, would allow Americans to use a portion of the money they’ve saved in pre-tax health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts for qualified fitness purchases.
While my bill wouldn’t cover things like a new pair of tennis shoes or athletic wear or fees for a golf or country club, it would allow for the purchase of certain gym memberships and fitness equipment and things like children’s sports league fees and cleats or other gear that might be required for them to participate (up to $250 per item, other than exercise equipment, and total expenses cannot exceed $1,000 for single filers and $2,000 for joint filers each year).
Among the PHIT Act’s advocates are professional athletes like Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker, Olympian Carl Lewis, MLB National League MVP Steve Garvey, and NHL all-star Alex Ovechkin, among many others. I’ve had the opportunity to welcome several of them to my office to discuss the PHIT Act and the importance of getting young people, in particular, more involved in physical activity. I’m glad they’re willing to lend their voices to this cause.
My bill is also supported by industries and associations from around the country. “Youth activity is the foundation for an active healthy lifestyle. Cost has become a barrier to youth sports, and PHIT will lower that barrier to give more children the opportunity of a healthy life,” said Tom Cove, president of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association.
Healthy living is already becoming more popular, and we know preventive care is good for us, but I’m hoping that by passing the bipartisan PHIT Act, we can make it more affordable, too.
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Thune likes giving bills cutesy (maybe he thinks they’re trendy) names. His jobs bill is “GIG”. His health bill is “PHIT”. He’s so clever.
The Founding Fathers established the federal government for the purpose of promoting youth sports. It’s right there in the Constitution.
John Thune is seriously clueless.
He’s not clueless at all. He’s made himself quite powerful in Washington. You and he just have different priorities.
Thune is clueless about his priorities. Making himself powerful in Washington should be a lower priority than keeping his promises to support and defend the Constitution.
He’s a capable man who serves his own ambitions. The constitution is of value to him only if it also serves those ambitions.
The bottom line is that this will enable people to save taxes on things they were going to spend money on anyway; I’m not sure why you have such a problem with that.
The fact that you believe that to be the bottom line speaks volumes about the political state of our nation.
As a Republican, I see Senator John Thune as a parasite living off the taxpayer dollars and accomplishing little in Washington, DC as well as his colleagues serving as elected officials from South Dakota. Thune gained power based on seniority as South Dakotans continue to send him back much like how they did Senator Tom Daschle.
Although he had not helped us and never even responded lest you call one of his interns as a response on much more important issues than what he apparently is working on here with this bill that few will even use.
I usually give politicians a chance before reverting to oppose them. This is the case in South Dakota across the board. I would regard them all as very weak servants of the people.
Why do you care about our Congressional delegation or what they do? The California delegation is completely insane. Maxine keeps yammering about impeachment, Kamala admitted she’s never heard of the Military Selective Service Act, Nancy can’t complete a sentence without forgetting whatever it was she was talking about, and I’m actually starting to feel sorry for Diane, who should be appearing in one of those E-trade “I’m 85 and I wanna go home” ads.
California has delivered us a monstrous regimen of women, as John Knox was won’t to complain.
Clean up your own mess.
Well I think the answer to your comment is that I’m a native son of South Dakota who like so many before had to leave this state due to the lack of opportunity for a meaningful career. You have to agree with that right? I came back to begin a business here, a billion dollar business in international trade with $250 million in presales of a Chinese technology product that goes into the automobile and recreational vehicle industry replacing an environmentally bad commodity out of Indonesia and Malaysia. Trump stopped us cold and Senator Thune, Senator Rounds, and Dusty Johnson refused to help. We weren’t in the agriculture priority for them.
Several years ago my colleague and I set up a trip with 11 California Assemblymen and the Lt. Governor at the time, Gavin Newsom, to travel to Austin, TX and meet with then Governor Perry on why Perry was in California monthly knocking on businesses’ doors asking them to come to Texas. They did, 13,000 major businesses since 2008. We knew what the issues why they left but just wanted to publicize it. And it was. The Wall Street Journal was there and we invited the top CEO’s of these California businesses (Raytheon, Toyota, Campbell Soup, to name a few) to join us and they did including the former Secretary of Labor nominee, Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee Restaurants. Knowing that we could not win this battle in California, I called Governor Daugaard’s office as we had several companies that were interested in SD. Well, we never even received a return call. So I came back here for awhile to generate economic development and diversity for the state and have ran into wall after wall of disingenuous politicians and South Dakotans all who say it can’t be done, don’t waste your time, etc. etc. The wealthy few control the state and don’t get in their way; don’t compete against them.
We have decided to move the business to Austin, Texas based on the wildly strange reception we have gotten here in South Dakota, once Trump comes to his senses and stops these harmful tariffs to American businesses in manufacturing and trade.
And for your information, there are more Republicans in California than any other state in the union and we have been fighting to stop the carnage by the left for quite some time now but run into obstacles like Rep. Dusty Johnson’s vote last week on the declaration of a national emergency. And there is one in California at least where I live in San Diego. And as for the California delegation your thoughts are well known but please understand that we fight these California statists and socialists and require serious talent from the Red States, including South Dakota, to curtail their momentum in switching our way of life over to socialism. Republicans are in an extreme minority in California but still there are 20-30 times the number of Republicans there than in South Dakota.
Having said that, we were the guys who implemented Prop 23 in the State of California, which we designated the Jobs Bill, to delay AB32 or the California climate law that ushered in the nation’s first Cap N Trade program. I work with the top US and world scientists as skeptics to the climate philosophy and have proven it incorrect years ago so yes we are cleaning up the mess that you in South Dakota do not care to fight nor will allow it to be fought.
For instance, I asked your Board of Regents if they would allow the head of the Office of Emerging Technologies & Science under John Bolton at the White House to give a speech at the opening of NSU’s new science building and they refused. This colleague of mine also heads the opposition to the Green New Deal so to understand why South Dakota would not want one of the most brilliant physicist of our time to come to the State giving our colleges here prestige is beyond me. So the business is heading to Austin, TX like so many others.
BTW, we know Maxine Waters and the former Senator Barbara Boxer are/were the dumbest politicians ever in Washington. The LA Times even said so. Companies continue to flee and South Dakota continues to put up fences to stop unwanted non-agriculture or non-wind energy businesses from developing. A first or second year trader in international trade can make $1 to 2 million in income. Now why would any state want businesses like that to mess up their economy. After all, South Dakota is known for its unskilled workers, the hell with college graduates looking for careers.
“I asked your Board of Regents if they would allow the head of the Office of Emerging Technologies & Science under John Bolton at the White House to give a speech at the opening of NSU’s new science building and they refused.
So let me get this straight… A guy from California asked the SDBOR to have a political appointee from an elite liberal east coast university to give a speech in Aberdeen, and they didn’t kowtow to him? Huh. Color me shocked. It’s almost like they know the prof. is a washed up old kook whose better days are long behind him and now just lends his name to the highest bidders in climate change denial, a field in which he has zero expertise. Double shock!
Anonymous Ike this response of yours really shows your IQ or lack of it. Dr. Will Happer still works with the JASONS, an organization he once Chaired besides his duties at the White House. Amongst designing the military use of nuclear energy on submarines and lasers on modern warships, the past Deputy Director of the Department of Energy, amongst his numerous awards also worked on the climate issue while at the JASONS long before climatology was even a science or what we call a pseudoscience made up of light disciplines of science rather than hard sciences which physicists are, Happer keeps very busy. So now I suppose you are triple shocked to learn this and that Happer is the world’s most renowned expert on CO2. Only in your liberal journals and online articles, where you get all your information, is where you’ll find childish descriptions like the one you painted but in the world of science, Happer is a highly decorated and regarded physicist.
Here’s what you Google anonymous Ike. Google JASONS and then look at their leadership and also note that Happer worked with Edward Teller and Ken Watson and Freeman Dyson … do you even know who these people are… and then be shocked again for the fourth time. Then Google his biography, not the articles from the leftist media, and note his accomplishments with Raytheon, General Atomics, General Dynamics, etc. and read his group’s publication upon Googling the “Co2 Coalition” and of course his work as a Princeton professor. It is written by scientists like the last man who walked on the moon who holds a PhD in geology and many other top US and world scientists in the physical sciences all who understand the physical nature of our atmosphere and its physics far better than these few climatologists that pretend to think they know it all.. Please note that climatology is a young science, less than 30 years old, that has departed from the scientific method and in your final Google search read the documents that scribes the “Scientific Method” and understand the meaning that there is no “consensus” in science and btw there never was a consensus on climate or global warming. Great marketing by the left however.
In conclusion who is this anonymous Ike? Is he from South Dakota and is he a grumpy old man that looks at the world through his liberal websites? I don’t know but I think a lot of people on this site may actually know who you are and why you won’t identify himself.
Remember, I am a native born South Dakotan. If you identify yourself, I would gladly debate you on the science anytime, anywhere but alas I know a lot of people like you who, members of the herd mentality, that talk big without any facts to back their big mouth up. They also cannot debate like grown people and be civil about the differences.
For a liberal to shame the older generation for being old all I can say is WOW. How shocking is that? I thought liberals were oh so tolerant of everyone.
When Schmitt and Happer publish to a peer-reviewed scientific journal about all their CO2 studies, I will happily retract my currently held notion that they’re kooks. Until then…. Kooks.
And for the record, nobody has a clue who I am. Well, Mr. Powers might, but the rest simply don’t care. I am merely a collection of disturbing and annoying trolls, drive-bys, and jabs. I exist here only for my own amusement and edification. As a dyed-in-the-wool liberal living in South Dakota, I like to hear what the conservative folks have to say – makes for a more well-rounded worldview.
Last comment to anonymous Ike. You need to grow up dude.
Whatever for? I’m happy with who, what, and where I am. I have no need to return to my childhood home and bloviate incessantly about how smart I am, all the cool people I know, how important my life’s work was, and how they’re doing it all wrong.
So let me get this straight, Jeff. You were born here but you left, and now you are sitting on a beach in California with way too much time on your hands, so you are trolling a blog here.
And you have a lot of complaints about South Dakota.
Sounds like a personal problem.
If you post your address maybe somebody will send you a quarter.
Mr. Lassle, we need people like you to shake-up SD. An outside force rather than career politicians is just what SD needs. Come back and run for office. You would be a breath of fresh air.
Nah, he’s a whiny crybaby. Didn’t like it here, went to California, doesn’t like it there, either. Now he’s going to Texas, where he will complain about everything there, too.
Dakotawarcollege commenters: TAXATION IS THEFT! THESE YOUNG GENERATIONS ARE LAZY AND FAT!
Thune introduces bill to return tax money to those it belongs to while encouraging a healthier lifestyle.
Dakotawarcollege commenters: THUNE DONT CUR BOUT THE CONSTITUTION. SUCH A WASHINTON INSIDER
Irony is dead.
You seem to be taking this very personally. Are you on Thune’s staff?
Nice deflection, bud.
Trust me, you and I aren’t friends.
I also trust you will keep running from the point re: the hypocrisy of the posters on this site. I know we arent friends, pal.
I thought the point of the original post was that we’re all too fat.
Lol, that was actually pretty solid. Well played.