WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding inflation:
“Two years ago, the American people elected a President who claimed he would govern as a uniting moderate. Underscoring that mandate, voters gave him unusually small coattails, the slimmest possible majority in Congress.
“This all-Democratic government inherited an economy that was, by every account, already primed and ready for economic recovery. Vaccines were already flooding the country. Major bipartisan stimulus had just passed days earlier.
“And remember, before the temporary COVID shock, years of Republican policies had our economic fundamentals humming along. Low inflation, low unemployment, and robust growth — an outstanding trifecta for working families.
“To put it as plainly as possible: Democrats had one job. To not mess things up.
“But alas, fast forward to today.
“Overall inflation is a staggering 13.2 percent since President Biden and his party came into power.
“Consumer prices through the roof. Supply chain chaos left and right. The worst single year for both grocery inflation and electricity inflation since the fallout from the Jimmy Carter era.
“The stock market has plummeted below where it was when President Biden took office, cutting the value of Americans’ retirement savings just as the cost of living has soared.
“Americans’ real wages — our citizens’ buying power, after inflation — is lower today than it was the moment President Biden put his hand on that Bible.
“Democrats asked for total control. They got total control. And they created total disaster.
“The net effect of this far-left policy experiment has been the equivalent of all-out economic warfare against the American middle class.
“But Democrats hardly even seem to notice, much less care.
“The same day the latest sky-high monthly inflation report came out, our colleagues literally headed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House for a folk music concert celebrating the additional hundreds of billions they had just dumped into ‘green’ energy subsidies.
“You know who isn’t partying, Mr. President?
“Working families in Wisconsin, who are paying a ‘Democrat Inflation Tax’ averaging $673 extra every single month just to tread water. In Georgia, that’s $681 every month. In Colorado it is a staggering $953 every month.
“None of this had to happen. Democrats were literally warned, in advance, that their plans for far-left reckless spending would send inflation through the roof and crush normal Americans.
“And what did our colleagues do?
“One gigantic party-line spending bill in 2021…
“Another huge reckless taxing and spending spree this past summer…
“And student loan socialism that has cashiers and carpenters eating the graduate school debt of doctors and lawyers.
“It adds up to nearly $3 trillion of party-line waste. And it adds up to 13.2% inflation and counting.
“Democrats wanted one-party control of Washington. They got it. And they promptly used that power to create a nightmare for American families.”