Self-Inflicted Crises

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, Mr. Johnson, for this Special Order, talking, unfortunately, about the things that make us sad to see happening in our country.

Here, before, they were talking about the climate crisis. We sure do have a climate crisis. We have a climate of unbridled spending happening in this country without any eye toward the consequences.

Of course, we have a border crisis. We have a law-and-order crisis going on.

We have a leadership crisis in this country. We are ceding the leadership of the United States of America to thugs in Russia, China, and Iran.

We have a political crisis, where everything is politicized, where we can't even get together on things we agree with because the other side forces you to take votes that potentially destroy the fabric of our country, our neighborhoods. The things that we agree on, we can't even do that here because there has to be a political price to pay for everything.

Of course, the financial crisis--inflation is here, and it is here to stay. In May, consumer prices spiked 5 percent from the previous year. That is the biggest spike since August 2008. Remember that? The beginning of the Great Recession?

We don't have to be doing this, but I think we are going to do it again. Overall, prices jumped at a shocking 9.7 percent annualized rate from March through May. That is 10 percent. Oh, by the way, that coincides with the time that the Biden fiscal policies started coming into play. They are beginning to devastate the economy like we knew they would.

In real terms, if you are driving, you are paying 40 percent more today than you did at the start of the year.

And it is artificial, right? We closed the Keystone pipeline down. We let Russia have their pipeline, but we closed ours down. Do you think the gas isn't coming? It is still coming. We are just paying a lot more for it because they have to put it on a truck or a train. Heaven forbid, it can't go through the Keystone pipeline. Oh, we can't have that.

Guess who pays? Every single one of us. But who does it hurt the most? Do you remember the days when you were growing up and couldn't afford to fill up your gas tank? You put five bucks in and prayed you got to the end of the week? That is who it is hurting, and it is happening again.

Food prices are up 2.4 percent, and the transport cost of food, up 25 percent. Again, who does it hurt the most?

Meanwhile, the May jobs report shows 9.3 million job openings in the U.S., nearly a million increase over the numbers for April.

That is the largest increase ever since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began counting. These are indicators of bad things happening. They are also indicators and a manifestation of bad policy when we, as the government, pay more for people to stay home than they make if they would go to work.

Who can blame them? They are looking out for their economic best interests. If they can make more staying home, well, God bless them. They have to because they have to pay the higher prices from all this inflation that is ``not happening.'' I say that tongue-in-cheek because that is what the President has told us, and that is what Janet Yellen told us.

Well, we might have been born at night, Mr. Johnson, but it wasn't last night. We know it is happening. It is obvious to any Economics 101 student.

The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress have extended these benefits through September. So guess what? It is just going to keep going.

Labor is going to cost more, and everything associated with labor is going to cost more. Who is it going to hurt the most? The people working the hardest at the bottom trying to make their way out.

Families can't afford it. Do you know who else can't afford it, Mr. Johnson? My good friend. I have a friend at home. He started a business 51 years ago. He came home from fighting for his country in Vietnam, and he started a business from scratch 51 years ago. He hired hundreds of people and was known around the world for his product.

Well, guess what just happened this month?

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, gotta shut her down, man. Gotta shut her down. The policies affect people's lives.

Like I said, the President and Secretary Yellen said that inflation wasn't real just a few months ago. Now they are saying it won't be permanent. If you believe what they said a couple of months ago, you might as well believe that.

While they are pursuing another $6 trillion in spending, we can't go to the bank. We are just going to print it. Guess what is going to happen? It is going to be runaway inflation, and it is actually going to threaten the continuation of this very Republic. And that spending is in addition to the $2.1 trillion budget deficit for the first 8 months of this fiscal year, the largest on record, which follows $3 trillion last year, which was another record.

We just simply can't afford these reckless policies. We love our country. We want to work with the other side. This isn't working. It is not working for the American people. It is not working for any of us.

We are at the tipping point in a lot of ways in this country. One of them is economic, and we can do something about it. But we need the President to have some fiscal restraint. We need the people in this body to have some fiscal restraint.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for offering this Special Order tonight. We don't need to kowtow. We don't need to kneel at the altar of the green crazy people who want to drive the agenda.

We have a great country, and we could save it. We don't have to let China open a coal plant--one every week--while we hobble ourselves and shut ourselves out of the great resources that we have in this country. We don't have to do it.

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