[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 141 (Wednesday, September 11, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5960-S5961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Economy

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the 
need to get our Nation and our economy back on track.
  We learned this morning the new numbers have come out on inflation. 
Prices are higher today than they were the day that the Biden-Harris 
administration took over--by over 20 percent. I hear about it in 
Wyoming every weekend; I heard about it this past weekend, how high 
prices have become and the crushing effect that that has had on 
families in my State in Wyoming and all around the country. This has 
been going on now for over 3 years. Prices have continued to go up. And 
this crisis of high prices has been cumulative. The impact on 
families--cumulative. And it is, regrettably, causing very hard choices 
for families to make. It shouldn't be this way.

  Here is a recent headline from CBS News. It said: ``More Americans 
are having to choose between food and energy bills.'' Clearly, this is 
a reflection on the Biden-Harris administration.
  Now, one of those folks who talked about that--the quote is from 
Stacey Freeman. Ms. Freeman says her energy bills each month cost her 
hundreds of dollars. She told CBS News: ``Sometimes I have to choose,'' 
she says, ``whether I'm going to pay the light bill or . . . pay all 
the rent or buy food or not let my son do a sport.''
  That is what has happened under the Biden-Harris administration--the 
impact of the high prices caused by the massive amounts of government 
spending passed without a single Republican vote that stimulated an 
amount of increase in prices--the highest in 40 years.
  Ms. Freeman's story is, sadly, all too common. Many Americans are 
feeling the high cost and the high anxiety related to the high cost of 
goods and services in their lives. Nearly 4 out of 10--2 out of 5--
Americans say they worry about their ability to pay their own bills. 
Since 2019, utilities cost the average American almost $300 more each 
month--not $300 a month, $300 more each month--than what they were 
paying before. These are the costly and cumulative consequences of Joe 
Biden and Kamala Harris's war on affordable and reliable American 
energy.
  Mr. President, you ask people anywhere around the country, and they 
know this is an administration that has strongly come out against 
American energy. They froze Federal oil and gas leases. They 
discouraged new energy production. They issued regulations to ban gas-
powered vehicles--the kind of vehicles most Americans drive. So it is 
not a surprise that high energy prices continue to bother and cause 
pain for American families.
  Month after month, year after year, Americans watch their costs go up 
and, regrettably, see their savings, if they have savings, go down.
  The Biden-Harris administration has offered no solutions to our 
Nation's cost-of-living crisis. Democrats, instead, tell the American 
people: Don't believe the pricetags at the grocery stores or the price 
at the gas pump. They want you to believe everything is OK. Americans 
know that isn't so.
  We learned last month that the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is 
supposed to keep accurate unemployment data--well, they reported faulty 
numbers. A million jobs touted by the Biden-Harris administration do 
not actually exist. They never existed. They never were created. Yet 
the Biden-Harris administration claimed credit for jobs that do not 
exist.
  Meanwhile, we have had 2 straight months where job growth was lower 
than expected.
  America, today, has fewer manufacturing jobs than we did last year. 
In Michigan, autoworkers are getting laid off. Last month, the carmaker 
Stellantis announced plans to lay off more than 2,000 American workers 
from its plants in Detroit. This is the same carmaker that received 
hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies--a tidal wave of electric 
vehicle grants--from the Biden-Harris administration, and they are 
laying off people. Take the money from the government--from the Biden 
administration, from the Harris administration--and lay off workers.
  It is no surprise that last night in the debate, Kamala Harris 
couldn't even answer the first question when they asked: Are you better 
off now than you were 4 years ago--are the American people better off 
now than they were 4 years ago? She could not defend herself, could not 
say yes, because people are not better off now than they were 4 years 
ago.
  These recent layoffs--they come as they switch their assembly lines 
from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles. Thousands of American 
workers will soon be put in the unemployment line as a result of what 
Harris and Biden and the Democrats are continuing to promote.
  Democrat regulations, Democrat rhetoric--a rhetoric of impending 
climate doom--are crushing American jobs. It is no wonder that Biden 
and Harris are now running from their record, and it is a record of 
ruin for the economy. Their flip-flops, walk-backs, the coverups--all 
too apparent.
  The American people know that the policies of Vice President Harris 
have had a chilling impact on our American economy. When then-Senator 
Harris was rated the most liberal Member of the U.S. Senate, Americans 
listened. When Vice President Harris said recently that her values had 
not changed, people listened again. Americans are struggling, and 
Biden-Harris policies and the Democrat policies are to blame.
  Remember how we got here: Democrats passed trillions of dollars in 
reckless, radical, runaway spending. It was

[[Page S5961]]

so unpopular, not a single Republican voted for it. It had to pass with 
a tie-breaking vote. Who broke the vote? Well, the Vice President of 
the United States comes to the Senate to cast the tie-breaking vote, 
and that would be Kamala Harris, now the candidate of the Democrats for 
President of the United States. Vice President Harris came to this 
Chamber, sat in that chair, and cast the vote that broke the tie that 
brought us record-high inflation, 40-year-high inflation.
  Americans cannot afford 4 more years of failure. Americans need a 
break from the damaging policies of Vice President Harris. What Harris 
is proposing is more wasteful Washington spending. Harris wants to 
raise taxes on the middle-class, impose socialist-style price controls. 
She supports banning fracking. She supports banning gas-powered 
vehicles. She wants to make energy more expensive. That is how she 
voted, that is what her rhetoric has been, and, as she said, her values 
haven't changed. Vice President Harris would continue the nightmare of 
high prices and high taxes.

  Let's remember, it was different 3\1/2\ years ago under the Trump 
administration. Back then, paychecks were going up. Inflation was 
nonexistent. Americans were breaking free of poverty. Americans were 
energy dominant. Our southern border was safe and secure. Not anymore. 
People want to go back to those days of American prosperity again.
  So it is time to turn the page from the disastrous policies of Joe 
Biden and Kamala Harris. Republicans will work to lower prices, to 
unleash American energy, and to get this Nation back on track.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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