Self-Inflicted Crises

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEUSER. Mr. Speaker, in less than 6 months, the Biden administration's policies have disrupted the fundamentals of our economy and have caused significant inflation.

In March, congressional Democrats pushed through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, some thought after the recovery began, in a highly partisan process without one Republican vote. This level of spending was unwarranted. Even many liberal-minded economists estimated it was three times bigger than needed and warned of inflationary pressures not seen in a generation as a result.

Inflation occurs when too many dollars are chasing too few goods, and predictability, this influx of spending resulted in prices increasing 4.2 percent in April and 5 percent last month. The reality is that inflation is a tax, Mr. Speaker, on every American family who is now paying more for essential goods, such as food and gasoline and many others, and whose savings are now worth less. Again, even liberal- minded economists called this the least responsible fiscal policy of the last 40 years.

At the same time, businesses are struggling to compete with Federal unemployment benefits. In one month, 4 million Americans walked off their jobs. Last month, there were a record 9.3 million open jobs, a level not seen since the beginning of World War II, when Americans were leaving to go fight the war. Yet, the Biden administration denies the correlation between open jobs and excessive, untargeted unemployment benefits.

Undeterred by the data, the Biden administration shows no sign of letting up, proposing a $6 trillion budget this year that will put our country on a path to record debt and that reports show will disrupt our long-term economic growth.

The Biden administration is persistent in its charade that inflation is not occurring, unemployment benefits don't deter work, and their policies won't significantly disrupt our country's strength and economic growth.

The reality is, the Biden agenda only grows government, not the private-sector economy.

This can be a great American decade if we unleash the power of American innovators and entrepreneurs, but we can't do that under the yoke of excessive and untargeted spending, increased taxes, and inflation. We must, Mr. Speaker, grow opportunity in America, which creates the American Dream. Government should only serve this purpose.

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