[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S4419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              The Economy

  Now on another matter, American families are hurting, and they are 
very clearly telling anybody who will listen to them what our 
priorities ought to be.
  Americans' No. 1 concern--by a mile--is the crushing inflation that 
Democrats spent us into. The share of Americans who name inflation as 
our most urgent problem is almost triple the next closest issue.
  Democrats' policies have working people paying a Democrat inflation 
tax of more than 13 percent on top of their grocery bills, 15 percent 
extra on their electric bills, and on and on down the list of 
everything that families need to just stay afloat.
  As a result, Democrats have presided over plummeting real wages for 
American workers. The average American worker has gotten a raise on 
paper, but their bigger paycheck buys them less than their smaller 
paycheck bought them this time last year.
  Now, this wasn't inevitable. Inflation did not have to be nearly this 
bad.
  Democrats chose to spend so recklessly. Democrats chose to wage this 
economic warfare against the middle class, against their savings, 
against their financial stability, against the purchasing power and the 
lifestyles that workers and parents sacrificed, literally, for years to 
build up.
  Americans are also deeply concerned about the erosion of law and 
order on our streets, in our cities, on our borders, and across our 
country.
  When you combine together crime and immigration, the issue of law and 
order ranks as the people's clear No. 2 concern, second only to 
inflation.
  Last year, the national murder rate reached its highest level in 25 
years. Cities across the country are contending with a historic surge 
in carjackings. My hometown of Louisville is now averaging an auto 
theft every 2\1/2\ hours. President Biden's failed border policies have 
Customs and Border Protection encountering 200 percent more fentanyl 
and apprehending the most illegal immigrants they have seen in more 
than 20 years.
  So there is no mystery about the crises facing our country. The 
American people know what needs to be addressed. Republicans know what 
needs to be addressed. But, unfortunately, the Democrats, who control 
the Senate, the House, and the White House, are still refusing to get 
with the program.
  Democrats' top priority for the entire year was the multi-hundred-
billion-dollar reckless taxing and spending spree they rammed through 
in August.
  Americans may want their leaders to cut inflation, fight crime and 
drugs, and secure the border, but Democrats just spent hundreds of 
billions of dollars of the people's money doing precisely none of that.
  Instead, our big-spending colleagues treated themselves to 87,000 new 
IRS agents, job-killing tax hikes, and the same kind of liberal energy 
policies that now have California officials warning--warning--about 
rolling blackouts and begging people not to charge up their electric 
cars.
  Oh, oh, and our Democratic colleagues have given no indication that 
cutting inflation, fighting crime, or securing the border will be on 
the Senate's agenda for September either.
  When our people are hurting this badly and speaking this clearly, it 
takes a willful choice--a choice--for Democrats to ignore them.
  Stable prices, safe streets, reliable energy, and a secure border--
four of the most basic duties that any government owes its people; four 
things Democrats have proven they cannot deliver.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.