Biden Administration
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise today to take a step back really and evaluate the real-life impacts of President Biden's policies. As every incoming administration does, promises were made to the American people. That is not surprising. But one of President Biden's first promises was to unite the American people. But as we have seen too often here, he has chosen a path that follows the lead of the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate, which is really a solitary path instead of a path of unity.
So it is fair to ask: Has that agenda resulted in a better life for working families? Has it made us more prosperous, more secure? Has it made us safer?
Well, let's take a look. We can start with what is top of mind for all of our folks across the country, and that is the rising price of everyday goods and services. Every day, men and women go to work, take the kids to school, expecting the predictability that filling up their car will cost a certain amount or that trip to the grocery store will be in the same range. And what do they find? Well, thanks to inflation, fueled in part by excessive government spending to the tune of trillions of dollars--and I am afraid we haven't seen the end of it-- Americans are paying higher prices for many of the things they just can't do without. Over the past year, consumer prices have risen 5.4 percent, the largest 1-year jump in 13 years.
So if you are saving up to buy a new or used car or truck, keep saving because it costs more under President Biden. Headed out to the grocery store? Prepare to see larger numbers at the bottom of your receipt, thanks to President Biden. Making monthly rent payments? If it seems higher than last year, that is because it is. The national median rent went up 17 percent since President Biden took office. Well, those numbers don't lie. People see them every day and they are in their bank accounts and in their checkbooks and in the strain of trying to make those things work. These are the real-life consequences of misguided economic policies from the left. Unfortunately, for working-class Americans, it means the only thing we have built back better is the return to soaring inflation and economic misery that many of us remember from the Jimmy Carter years.
Those years also remind us of another problem facing every family, as I mentioned before. That is the rising cost of gas. Digits on the gas pump--they tick up faster and faster every time you fill up, and it isn't because our tanks have gotten bigger, that is for sure. In West Virginia, the average cost of gas compared to this time last year is more than $1 per gallon. So not only are those trips to the grocery store more expensive, it costs more to get to the grocery store. The White House has insisted that they are working on it, and on behalf of everyone in my State who drives to work, drops their kids off at school, and hops in the car to visit their families, I sure hope they are.
At the same time, it is important to note that on President Biden's first day of office, he told us all we needed to know about his energy policy and that would be: America last. One of his first acts as President was to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline, costing thousands of American jobs--union jobs--claiming that it had to be done to combat climate change. Compare that to just a few months later, when President Biden lifted sanctions--yes, he lifted the sanctions--on a Russian gas pipeline, allowing the Nord Stream II project to continue, further empowering Vladimir Putin and threatening the national security of America and our allies in Europe.
These are just a few of the backward moves by this White House that have left us really scratching our heads. And it has only been compounded by Executive action and regulations aimed at stifling the production of energy here in this country. We remember the effects--I certainly do in West Virginia--the effects of this playbook as it originally was created during the Obama years. So it is just a shame that this administration doesn't remember that.
Again, all of this is hitting the consumer--American consumer--hard right as we are approaching our winter months. It is expected that households will see their home heating bills rise 54 percent compared to last winter. And for homes that use natural gas for heat, which I do in my home and I would highly recommend it, they will pay about 30 percent more than they did last year. Families are having to cut back basic necessities just to heat their homes and make ends meet.
Another pledge President Biden made was to build a fair and humane immigration system. He gutted many of the deterrent policies that effectively kept illegal immigration numbers down, such as eliminating the effective ``Remain in Mexico'' policy; stopping construction of the border wall; and signaling to the whole hemisphere that if you make it to the U.S.-Mexican border, you will be allowed in.
This was reported today, and this has resulted in the highest numbers for a fiscal year that have ever been recorded of border arrests--1.7 million border arrests--the most ever on record. And again, these policies were all done in the name of creating a moral and humane system.
Well, let me tell you, the Senator from Missouri and I took a visit to the border just over the last year, and there was nothing humane about the conditions we saw with overcrowded migrant children facilities in Texas. There was nothing humane about the Haitian immigrants living under a bridge in Del Rio. There is nothing humane about women giving birth, and I believe at last count it was 11 children were born in those conditions. This all happened because they made that dangerous journey to the border believing that if they made it, they would be welcomed in. Well, guess what. They were right because about 12,000 of the Haitian refugees that were under that bridge are in this country right now.
I will take it a step further. There is nothing humane about fueling the disease of addiction millions of Americans battle as deadly drugs flow across our porous border and make their way into our communities. Not addressing an overdose crisis that took 93,000 sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers last year is not humane. You would say: How is this happening? The Border Patrol has got to focus on the human element while more and more drugs can pass through.
As someone representing a State hit hardest by the drug epidemic, I am pleading with President Biden and Vice President Harris or whoever is in charge of resolving the self-created border crisis to please do something different--or at least do something.
So this is what the first year of Biden's America looks like: failed policies, broken promises. Americans were promised prosperity, and we have gotten a sampling of socialism. We were promised a secure nation; instead, our borders are open and a humanitarian crisis rages on our southern border. We were promised a repaired reputation on the world stage, and instead we have led from behind and abandoned our own people abroad in Afghanistan. We were promised unity, and instead we heard divisive rhetoric that demonizes half of our country.
The better version of America President Biden was selling, as some of us had feared, was just too good to be true.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source