[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 126 (Monday, July 19, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4937-S4938]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, runaway costs and surging inflation 
are a huge worry for middle-class families. Every survey confirms it. 
Every conversation confirms it.
  Over the last 12 months, during this economic recovery, the average 
American worker earned a 3.6-percent raise, but inflation has risen so 
steeply that it has turned that into a nearly 2-percent pay cut.
  Remember, at the beginning of the year, the Biden administration 
inherited a historically strong economic trajectory. Thanks to the 
smart, targeted, bipartisan policies we passed last year, our economy 
was primed to get millions of Americans back to work with competitive 
pay while consumers unleashed pent-up demand. But, alas, that was 
before Democrats decided to pour $2 trillion into a long list of 
liberal pet projects and insisted on making it less appealing for 
workers to actually go back to work.
  Today, essentials like gas and groceries have gotten more and more 
expensive. Bigger purchases consumers had put off during the pandemic 
are getting even further out of reach. Across the country, working 
families and employers alike are feeling the pinch, an effective tax 
increase on both the wages and the savings of the middle class.
  Now, our colleagues weren't flying blind. They weren't naive. They 
knew they were passing what the White House Chief of Staff said was 
designed to be ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a 
generation.'' And they knew the risks, which one liberal economist 
described as ``inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a 
generation.''
  Sure enough, inflation just clocked the fastest year-on-year increase 
since 2008, but, apparently, according to President Biden himself, the 
solution is--listen to this--even more of the same. Today, instead of 
deflecting attention from the fact that his administration's springtime 
approach was flat wrong, the President actually doubled down. He 
suggested the right way to shake this inflation was--listen to this--
another $3.5 trillion in spending.
  This is the same reckless taxing and spending spree the Democrats 
dreamt up when they assumed our economy would be having the opposite 
problem. But now all that same borrowing, printing, and spending is 
supposed to be what the doctor ordered to fight inflation?
  Inflate our way out of inflation. Let's hope the American people 
don't have to learn firsthand how that strategy would work out. Another 
multitrillion-dollar reckless taxing and spending spree, believe me, is 
the last thing American families need.

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