[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 79 (Wednesday, May 11, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S2426]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Inflation

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the country just received yet another 
terrible inflation report. Yet again, overall inflation came in higher 
than expected: 8.3 percent. Inflation continues to stick right around 
its worst level in 40 years.
  The measure that the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls ``core 
inflation'' increased in April by twice as much as it increased in 
March. Food costs are way up. Housing costs are way up once again.
  President Biden has presided over one of the most expensive years for 
working families in modern American history. The national average gas 
price is the highest it has ever been in the history of our country. 
Americans are paying an average of $4.33 per gallon for regular. Diesel 
has also hit a record high; it is now $5.62 per gallon--a huge blow to 
Americans with trucks and tractors, to small businesses and family 
farms. And, of course, it forces up the price of practically everything 
that travels on a truck to reach the scene of a store or a supermarket. 
Inflation on top of inflation.
  In my home State, Kentuckians are paying 34 percent more for propane 
and 112 percent more for home heating oil than they were paying when 
Democrats took control of the government.
  Let me say that again. The price of home heating oil has more than 
doubled since President Biden took office, a crushing blow--a crushing 
blow--to rural America, especially in States like Pennsylvania, 
Vermont, and New Hampshire.
  Democratic policies have fueled this runaway inflation. Their 
mistakes are why inflation has hit America much harder than other 
developed countries.
  Expert calculations say Democrats' $2 trillion spending spree last 
March is directly responsible for as much as 3 percentage points of our 
current inflation. Even the prominent Democratic economist Jason Furman 
puts the number at 2.5 percent. If just one--one--Senate Democrat had 
the courage to vote with Republicans in March of 2021, inflation today 
would be closer to 5 percent instead of almost 8\1/2\ percent.
  Steve Rattner was a top economic adviser to President Obama. He says 
the Democrats' $2 trillion disaster will ``go down in history as an 
extraordinary policy mistake'' that put us ``way behind the curve on 
inflation.'' That is Steve Rattner, top economic adviser to President 
Obama.
  Everyone knows where this inflation came from, but President Biden 
just can't seem to admit it. He just makes excuses that no one is 
buying.
  Listen to a Democratic political adviser, David Axelrod. He said:

       [Biden] was saying, you know, everything is Putin's price 
     hikes, inflation is Putin's fault. People [simply] don't 
     believe that.

  According to David Axelrod:

       They know that we had inflation before this. They know that 
     gas prices were high before this. . . . You can't blame 
     everything in the economy on Putin.

  David Axelrod.
  So it is this President and his all-Democratic government who have 
drained American families' pocketbooks. And every poll--every poll--
shows our citizens understand that sad reality all too well.