Another Terrible Inflation Report Shows Democrats Are Failing Families
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding inflation:
“Moments ago, the country got yet another terrible monthly inflation report under the Biden Administration. Yet again, the data confirm what working families already know painfully well: Rampant inflation and soaring prices are crushing the American people.
“Experts had predicted another red-hot inflation report, around 7%. Even that alone would have meant we were still trapped inside the worst inflation in 40 years. But reality turned out to be even worse than that.
“It turns out inflation this past year hasn’t been seven percent. It’s been seven and a half percent.
“In other words, if you haven’t personally gotten a pay raise of eight percent or more in the last year, then Democrats’ policies have given you a pay cut.
“To add insult to injury, reporters say the worst of this inflation was driven by the most painful categories for working families: food prices, energy prices, and rent. This is not about financial inconvenience for wealthy people who can afford to stomach it. This is about massive price increases for essential goods that make up a huge share of working families’ budgets.
“Gasoline is up about 40% since this time last year. Used car prices are up about the same. Meats, fish, and eggs cost over 12% more than they did just one year ago. The cost of natural gas for home heating has soared by 24% since this time last year. Fuel oil has shot up by almost 47%.
“The cost of essentials has absolutely exploded since Washington Democrats took power.
“And to be clear, the worst inflation in 40 years is not something that just spontaneously happened to Democrats on their watch.
“As a Pew report demonstrated late last year, it’s true countries around the world are facing inflation as a result of COVID — but America has it worse than almost everybody else in the developed world.
“That is a direct result of liberal policy choices.
“Here is how Jason Furman, President Obama’s CEA chairman, explained it recently. Allow me to quote from the New York Times: ‘”The United States has had much more inflation than almost any other advanced economy in the world,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and former Obama administration economic adviser, who used comparable methodologies to look across areas and concluded that U.S. price increases have been consistently faster. The difference, he said, comes because “the United States’ stimulus is in a category of its own.”’
“The severity of this inflation was directly fueled by the reckless, far-left spending spree that every single Democrat in this chamber voted to ram through at President Biden’s behest last year.
“Even the most prominent liberal economists knew this would happen and tried to warn the Democrats. A year ago, Larry Summers warned that Democrats’ binge could set off, ‘inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.’
“But Democrats ignored their own experts. They plowed ahead, using the pandemic as a pretext to dump $2 trillion dollars into left-wing policies that were overwhelmingly unrelated to the healthcare fight against the virus.
“And we see the results all around us. Families are living with the results every day.
“As recently as the last few days, some of my Democratic colleagues have come here to the floor to boast about the increase in nominal wages. They want a round of applause because the numbers on many Americans’ paychecks have gone up.
“This is staggeringly out of touch.
“Yes, in an inflationary spiral, lots of people will see the numbers on their paychecks go up. The problem is that even those bigger paychecks are buying Americans less in real terms today than their smaller paychecks bought them before Democrats were sworn in.
“It’s like this: Democrats’ policies have created an inflation riptide that is forcing families and small businesses to swim as fast as they possibly can just to avoid getting sucked out to sea. But Democrats are trying to call this a success because of how fast everybody’s arms and legs are moving.
“Talk about an absurd effort to spin your way out of reality.
“The truth is plain for everybody to see. A few weeks ago the Washington Post ran a story with the headline ‘That Raise Meant Nothing’: Inflation Is Wiping Out Pay Increases for Most Americans.’ The story explained, ‘many [workers] said that despite considerable pay raises — as much as 33 percent, in some cases — they were still struggling to cover basic expenses. Several workers said they had taken second jobs to keep up with rising costs for groceries, gas and rent.’
“American workers are not buying the Democrats’ spin for one second.
“One year after President Biden took office with massive economic tailwinds at his back, with an economy that was primed for a roaring comeback, 75% of Americans say our economy is doing badly.
“About ninety percent of Americans say they’re concerned with inflation.
“A 60% supermajority say their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living.
“It didn’t have to be this way, Madam President. This was a policy choice. This all-Democrat government was warned their radical agenda would supercharge inflation and they pushed ahead anyway. And our country is paying the price.”
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