[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 188 (Tuesday, October 26, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H5881-H5882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            INFLATION CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MEUSER. Madam Speaker, I was in a grocery store on Sunday and 
nearly a dozen of my constituents stopped me and were very upset about 
product shortages and price increases.
  According to the data, eggs are up 12 percent, bacon is up 20 
percent, chicken is up 8 percent, gasoline is up 40 to 50 percent, 
hamburger and beef are running short. I can assure you, Madam Speaker, 
while these data points paint a picture, price increases are just 
simply much higher, and my constituents are feeling the effects in 
their family budgets.
  An older gentleman with a half-full shopping cart that rang up for 
$111 glanced up at me and said: This is ridiculous. There are people 
filling their gas tanks now--before it was $50, now it is $80, $90, 
$100 to fill up a pickup truck because, Madam Speaker, the President 
and Members of this House--in fact, the leadership of this House--has 
decided to attack domestic energy production, which is clearly driving 
prices up through the roof.
  With winter around the corner, it will cost 30 percent more to heat 
an average person's home. Yet, the Democrats are trying to implement a 
home heating tax--that is a wonderful idea--in the so-called Build Back 
Better bill that will drive energy bills even higher.
  Madam Speaker, how is this helpful? How is it helpful to raise costs 
to tax our domestic energy while making it more competitive for Russia 
and Saudi Arabia and all the other places in the world to sell us their 
energy, so-called cheaper, when meanwhile a barrel of oil is over $80 a 
barrel. It makes no sense.
  And the thing is this, the American people get this. The American 
people know it. They are paying the price for it. Members here will pay 
the price at the polls because this bill called Build Back Better is a 
disaster, Madam Speaker.
  This is seventh grade economics. There is too much demand created by 
Big Government policies and not enough supply, not enough workers 
because we are providing far too much incentive for them not to work. 
Why would they, if they are making more not working? We are not doing 
anything to help our U.S. productivity to fulfill the demand that is 
being created by these Big Government policies.
  All the while, foreign imports are pouring in and creating a 
bottleneck at our ports that we all see because we don't have the 
capacity, number one, to build in the USA to fulfill the demand; but 
number two, to unload the cargo ships and distribute the goods and then 
put them in trucks and ship them around the country.
  So even the Treasury Secretary is warning Americans that inflation 
will be here throughout the next year, even though the President and 
others have said: Oh, no, this is just a passing problem. Nobody has to 
worry about it.
  So what is the plan moving forward for the majority in this House, 
for the Democrats? They want to prime the demand side of the equation 
with a multi-trillion dollar spending bill

[[Page H5882]]

known as Build Back Better, and we are hearing all these wonderful 
things about it.
  Well, the problem is that all those wonderful things cost far too 
much and are completely unaffordable and aren't being paid for by the 
Members of this House; they are being paid for by my constituents who 
are going to be worse off because of it, and they also know that.
  And not to mention, Madam Speaker, what about all the fraud? We don't 
hear much about that. Did you realize there was $87 billion in fraud 
due to the unemployment compensation that was just sprawled out to 
whoever asked with absolutely no work requirements at all, and none 
exist in this bill either.
  We will be building back--not better--we will be building back in a 
manner that will be hurtful to my constituents and to my State and to 
our country.
  Madam Speaker, the holidays are around the corner. Demand always 
increases in the holidays. So the situation is going to get further 
exacerbated, without a doubt. You don't need an economist to know that 
demand is going to continue to go up, supply will be minimal, inflation 
will rise due to the Build Back Better, which means there will be less 
workers. This is going to be the most expensive Christmas anyone can 
remember.

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