[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 87 (Wednesday, May 19, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H2545-H2546]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             INFLATION TAX

  The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. 
McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, when the Democrats passed Mr. Biden's 
$1.9 trillion spending spree in March, a lot of people got a lot of 
free money, thousands of dollars in many cases. But the bill is already 
coming due for that free money, and as many of us warned, it turns out 
that free money is very expensive.
  Indeed, it turns out that the very same families most harmed by the 
lockdowns will be the most harmed by paying the bill for the lockdown 
relief. It comes to about $15,000 for an average family, and the first 
installment is reflected in the rising inflation sapping the purchasing 
power of working families.
  Government cannot put a single dollar into the economy that is not 
first taken out of the same economy. When government spends a dollar 
for you, it has already decided to take a dollar from you. And it can 
only be taken back in three ways: from your current earnings through 
higher taxes, from your future earnings through borrowing, and from 
your savings and purchasing power through inflation. There is no other 
way to pay for every dollar that government spends. Inflation is 
the most insidious of these taxes because it silently hollows out 
everything that a family labors to achieve.

  Anyone who has gone near a gas station or a grocery store in the last 
few months can now see where their relief checks came from and how they 
are going to be paid back. The Democrats shut down productivity with 
their lockdowns, and then they flooded the economy with dollars. More 
dollars chasing fewer goods is the classic recipe for inflation. And 
this is just the first installment of the bill already coming due for 
the left's reckless spending.
  The Consumer Price Index increased 4.2 percent in April. It was 2.6 
percent in March, and it is 4.2 percent now. Core inflation is already 
growing faster than at any time since the end of the Carter 
administration.
  Now, what does that mean, exactly? Well, it means that if you have 
managed to save $100,000 for your retirement, the government has just 
taken out $4,200 of it because your savings are now worth that much 
less. Your balance hasn't declined, but its purchasing power has lost 
$4,200.
  Check your grocery bill or your utility bill. How much more are you 
spending to put food on the table or heat your home? There are other 
bad policies at work as well--green energy, for example--but a big part 
of that difference is your inflation tax, paid directly from the 
reduced purchasing power of your money. And that is true of everything 
you buy.
  It doesn't stop there. The Democrats are promising a massive increase 
in corporate taxes while assuring the gullible not to worry, that only 
the corporations will pay it. But corporations don't pay corporate 
taxes; you do. You pay them as a consumer through higher prices. You 
pay them as an employee through lower wages. And you pay them as an 
investor through lower

[[Page H2546]]

earnings--your 401(k), for example. There is no other way that a 
corporate tax can be paid. And the resulting reduction in productivity 
will further feed their inflation tax.
  The Democrats' sick joke is this: Everything that the government has 
handed out to your family is already being taken back from your family 
through higher prices, and that pain is only beginning.
  What makes the Democrats think that socialism will work any better 
here than every other country that has tried it? It consistently 
produces shortages, unemployment, inflation, poverty, and malaise 
wherever it is imposed. And I am afraid we will continue down this 
dismal path until Americans awaken to the simple economic realities 
that the Democratic socialists have now unleashed upon our country.
  In his inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson surveyed the boundless 
bounties of our Nation and asked: ``With all these blessings, what more 
is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one 
thing more, fellow citizens: a wise and frugal government, which shall 
restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free 
to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall 
not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the 
sum of good government.''
  Madam Speaker, Americans deserve a wise and frugal government. But it 
is not enough to deserve it. We have to demand it at the ballot box.

                          ____________________