The Worst Inflation in Four Decades
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Democrats’ reckless tax and spending spree:
“Washington Democrats’ printing, borrowing, and spending addiction is directly hurting American families.
“Two thirds of the American people — a supermajority — are worried about inflation.
“About half the middle class and 70 percent of low-income families say soaring prices have personally hurt their household.
“And it isn’t getting better, like the Biden Administration promised it would. It’s getting worse.
“Last Friday, the Labor Department released a jaw-dropping report: The Consumer Price Index has shot up 6.8% over the past year. Six point eight percent inflation. The worst inflation in almost 40 years.
“Now, it’s true that the average American worker has gotten pay increase since 2020. But rising prices have more than wiped that out.
“We have a remarkable situation where American workers are earning raises, but their bigger paychecks buy their families even less than what their smaller paychecks bought before the Democrats took power.
“The net effect is a nearly 2% pay cut for the average American.
“Our citizens know what’s happening. 67% of the country says Washington needs to ‘cut back on spending and printing money.’
“But here in Washington, leading Democrats want to plow ahead and double down on the reckless taxing and spending that got us here.
“They want to respond to this stunning inflation report by printing, borrowing, and spending trillions upon trillions more on new entitlements and far-left programs.
“And if that weren’t bad enough, on Friday, a new report showed their socialist shopping spree could cost the country trillions more than Democrats admit.
“You see, as one of our Democratic colleagues explained last month, his party’s bill is packed full of ‘shell games’ and ‘budget gimmicks.’
“For example, their bill pretends that major new entitlements would simply expire after a few years.
“Of course, that never happens. As a wise man once said, ‘nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.’ And Democrats aren’t even pretending they think the spending would stop. They’re boasting about a permanent transformation.
“The fake expiration dates are just an accounting trick so the price tag looks artificially low.
“And last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office announced that if we acknowledge the permanent entitlements would be permanent, their bill would actually cost $4.9 trillion in the first decade alone.
“It would explode the deficit by $3 trillion in that time.
“Democrats are trying to reassure their alarmed members that they’d find new ways to offset future extensions.
“But think about it.
“They’ve just spent months shoving every possible pay-for into this existing bill. They already burned through huge, permanent tax hikes just to partially offset the bill with the gimmicks!
“Extending these programs further would either explode our national debt… or it would take even further trillions in even further gigantic tax hikes that Democrats will not specify.
“So which is it? Historic deficits or trillions more in secret tax hikes? The right answer for the country is neither.
“Later today, every Senate Democrat is going to vote on party lines to raise our nation’s debt limit by trillions of dollars.
“If they jam through another reckless taxing and spending spree, this massive debt increase will just be the beginning.
“More printing and borrowing. To set up more reckless spending. To cause more inflation. To hurt working families even more. The American people need a break.”
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Related Issues: Inflation, Senate Democrats, Taxes, Budget, Tax Reform
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