[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 207 (Tuesday, December 9, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S8550]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Affordability

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today, Donald Trump will travel to 
Pennsylvania and try to convince the American people that he is 
lowering their costs, but the American people, seeing their costs go up 
left and right, aren't going to buy it. Tonight, Donald Trump will 
throw a barrel of hay into the audience and tell them it is spun gold, 
but the American people know he is lying because everywhere they look, 
prices are going up and up and up.
  We have all read how the White House very soon will start getting 
``serious'' about messaging more on affordability. They don't get it. 
The problem is that affordability is not a messaging issue; it is real. 
It is real when people go to the supermarket or buy a car or try to buy 
a house or see their electric bill, their healthcare bills.
  The American people know it is real, and Donald Trump tries to wish 
it away. He believes that people will believe his words when he says it 
is a hoax. They won't. They won't. There aren't enough speeches in the 
world to paper over the fact that Donald Trump has sent costs up and 
up, not down. His tariffs raised the price of groceries, raised the 
price of clothing, raised the price of energy. And it is not just his 
tariffs. It is his policies that cut out the cheapest form of energy we 
have: clean energy. It is his policies that allow food producers to get 
away with monopoly pricing. It is his strategy to impose tariffs on the 
American people and say: It is good for you.
  The fact is that Donald Trump can do nothing to erase this, that life 
is more expensive under Donald Trump than it was before he took office. 
He will hate to admit it, but life is more expensive under Donald Trump 
than it was under Joe Biden.
  Just 36 percent of Americans approve of his job and the job he is 
doing on the economy. Thirty-six percent of Americans--that is it--
approve of the job Trump is doing on the economy, according to a poll 
by Marquette University, which is widely respected. Even a significant 
portion of Trump voters--37 percent--say the cost of living is the 
worst they can ever remember, according to POLITICO. So when Trump 
voters say it was better under Biden than it is now, whoa, something is 
wrong.
  So, no, Donald Trump, affordability is not a hoax; it is not a 
Democratic scam. You try to make everything, even the most commonsense 
things, partisan.
  The affordability crisis is very real. It is being felt by everyone, 
and the American people know it is Donald Trump's fault. No speech in 
Pennsylvania or anywhere else can undo that.