[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 21, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4882-S4883]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Inflation
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, on Sunday, the President appeared on ``60
minutes,'' where he was asked what he was going to do to help alleviate
inflation in light of August's continued grim inflation news and the
resulting stock market nosedive.
The President's response?
Well, first of all, let's put this in perspective.
Inflation rate month to month was just--just an inch, hardly
at all.
``Let's put this in perspective''? That might be something to say if
the inflation rate had ticked up from, say, 2 percent--the target
inflation rate--to 2.1 percent, but I am pretty sure that that is not
the appropriate thing to say when you are talking about the sixth
straight month of inflation above 8 percent and the ninth straight
month of inflation at or above 7 percent and the 11th straight month of
inflation above 6 percent.
Even more concerning than August's consumer price index rising 8.3
percent from the same month a year ago was the increase in core
inflation--a measure of inflation minus the volatile categories of food
and energy. This measure increased to 6.3 percent in August, up from
5.9 percent in both June and July, suggesting that inflation is sinking
its roots even deeper into various sectors of our economy--or in the
words of a CNBC headline from last week:
Inflation isn't just about fuel costs anymore, as price
increases broaden across the economy.
But, of course, you don't have to take my word for it about the mess
that we are in. Here is what one of President Obama's top economic
advisers had to say last week after August's inflation numbers came
out:
Today's CPI report confirms that the US has a serious
inflation problem. Core inflation is higher this month than
for the quarter, higher this quarter than last quarter,
higher this half of the year than the previous one, and
higher last year than the previous one.
``Let's put this in perspective.'' That is what President Biden had
to say? Here is the American people's perspective: Fifty-seven percent
of Americans disapprove of President Biden's handling of the economy,
and 37 percent of voters say that President Biden's policies have hurt
them personally, versus just 15 percent of voters who say his policies
have helped them.
These numbers are no surprise. The President may somehow still
believe that he is creating an economy that will ``work for working
families,'' but the reality is that, in the Biden economy, working
Americans are suffering. Americans' utility bills are soaring; their
grocery bills have ballooned; and they are paying $1.30 more per gallon
every time they fill up their car than they were when President Biden
was elected. Real wages have dropped every single month since Democrats
passed their $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan spending spree--the
bill, I would add, that helped plunged our economy into our current
crisis. And 40 percent of Americans report having difficulty paying for
their normal household expenses. Americans are dipping into their
savings or working side jobs to make ends meet. They are charging more
day-to-day expenses on their credit cards. In too many cases, they are
having to visit food banks, which are seeing huge lines thanks to
continued high inflation. What are Democrats and the President doing
about this? Nothing.
Of course, last month, Democrats did pass a bill they called the
Inflation Reduction Act. The problem? The bill will do nothing to
reduce inflation--nothing. Again, you don't have to take my word for
it. The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model said this about the
bill's impact on inflation:
The impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable
from zero.
``[S]tatistically indistinguishable from zero.''
Or you could take the word of the Democrat chairman of the Budget
Committee, who admitted right here on the Senate floor that the so-
called Inflation Reduction Act would not reduce inflation.
But it is not just that Democrats have done nothing to help solve our
inflation crisis; they are also on track to make Americans' economic
situation significantly worse.
In August, President Biden announced a massive student loan giveaway
that could cost anywhere from an estimated $500 billion to more than $1
trillion and that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes
would ``meaningfully boost inflation.'' This is a statement from the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget talking about the
President's massive student loan giveaway, and they say it will
``meaningfully boost inflation'' or, as the president of the Committee
for a Responsible Federal Budget recently put it, ``Amid 40-year-high
inflation and despite the administration constantly touting its `fiscal
responsibility,' these changes will recklessly add to the debt and make
the Federal Reserve's job in fighting inflation even harder, which will
amplify our risk of entering a recession.''
Many of us would argue we are already in a recession--two consecutive
quarters of negative GDP growth.
Inflation has spent 8 straight months at 40-year highs, and the
President has decided that now is a good time to implement a policy
that will ``meaningfully boost inflation.''
The economy continues to show signs of weakening, driven in large
part by the inflation crisis Democrats helped create. Major companies
have recently announced job cuts. Sixty-three percent of small
businesses are putting a hold on hiring, and 10 percent of those are
cutting jobs. We have had negative economic growth, as I mentioned, for
the past two quarters. So naturally--naturally--Democrats decided this
was
[[Page S4883]]
a good time to raise taxes on businesses. Yes, Democrats' so-called
Inflation Reduction Act imposes new taxes on businesses to help pay for
their Green New Deal spending.
I say ``taxes on businesses,'' but, of course, taxes on businesses
largely fall on workers and consumers in the form of fewer jobs and
opportunities, lower wages, and higher prices--in other words, pretty
much the exact opposite of what we need right now, with prices soaring
and wages failing to keep pace with inflation.
The Inflation Reduction Act also imposes new taxes on energy that
will drive up energy prices for both American families and American
businesses, imposing further pain on family budgets and likely
prolonging our inflation crisis even further.
The President may have wanted to build an economy ``from the bottom
up and the middle out,'' as he has described it; instead, he and his
fellow Democrats have helped create an economy in which working
families are struggling to make it from one paycheck to the next. And
thanks to the additional tax-and-spend policies the Democrats have
recently implemented, working families are likely to be struggling for
some time to come.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.