Inflation Hitting Americans from Farm to Table
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding inflation:
“Rising food prices have been one of the most relentless and painful aspects of the historic inflation unfolding on Democrats’ watch.
“One year ago, President Biden’s White House bragged that the cost of an Independence Day cookout would be sixteen cents cheaper than the year before. Well, in the past year, food prices have jumped more than 9%. So that same spread won’t be cents cheaper, it’ll be dollars more expensive.
“Grocery store prices have risen at their fastest rate since 1980. At full-service restaurants, prices have jumped more in the past 12 months than in any year on record.
“Seventeen straight months of rising food prices. That’s not a ‘Putin Price Hike’.
“As one of my constituents in Nancy, Kentucky, put it a few months back, ‘Many people are scared they might have to choose between eating and heating the house.’
“Democrats’ failed policies have made it harder to feed a family in America. But the pain isn’t limited to the supermarket or the dinner table. It’s hitting food producers at every step of the supply chain.
“According to the owner of the Jot ‘Em Down Store, which boasts the oldest lunch counter in Lexington, rising costs have come from all directions. ‘This year, we’ve been hampered by supply chain issues, rising gas prices,’ and ‘inflation…’
“In my hometown of Louisville, the operator of one stand at the local farmers’ market elaborated, ‘The feed to feed animals has gone up. Packaging, processing has gone up… Butter has gone up three times in the last four weeks.’
“Our food producers are feeling the pinch.
“A soybean farmer in Muhlenberg County put it this way, ‘I could put out two, maybe three crops in years past for what it’s costing this year.’
“A corn grower in Christian County says rising prices are, ‘crippling family farms like mine.’
“Of course, Kentucky’s farmers are not alone. Across America, farm country has been absolutely hammered on Democrats’ watch. And by the Biden Administration’s own data, farm production expenses from animal feed to diesel fuel are climbing even higher this year than last year.
“It’s a really hard time to be in the business of feeding America. But it didn’t have to be this way.
“Washington Democrats didn’t have to ram through a multi-trillion-dollar wish list of inflationary spending last spring. The Biden Administration didn’t have to declare war on affordable American energy on Day One.
“Needless to say, millions of working Americans families sit down for dinner these days wondering why on Earth they did.”
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