Inflation Crushing Holiday Budgets

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEUSER. Mr. Speaker, Americans are feeling the pinch of rising prices as they are gearing up to both host and visit their families and friends this holiday season.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and it is shaping up to be the most expensive meal in the history of the holiday due to rising costs, largely from President Biden and Democrats' failed economic policies.

Inflation is at a 30-year high, crushing American holiday budgets from the cost of travel, food, and gifts. The price of gasoline, Mr. Speaker, is up 61 percent--nearly $4 nationally--from a year ago, causing the price of driving and flying to see relatives skyrocket. Many Americans are now facing the decision to cancel holiday travel due to these rising costs.

Most holiday staple foods are significantly more expensive as well, if Americans are lucky enough to find them on the grocery shelves due to the supply chain crisis we are facing.

The cost of turkey is up about 20 percent. Potatoes are up about 15 percent. Carrots are up almost 50 percent. Cranberries and biscuits are up nearly 10 percent. And even pumpkin pie is way up.

On average, a Thanksgiving meal this year will cost families between 15 to 20 percent more than it did just 1 year ago today. With the rising cost of energy and essential goods, nearly one-third of working families' earnings are going to food and energy costs.

Instead of finding ways to offset this, mitigate it, improve and fix the supply chain crisis, and bring domestic energy back to minimize these skyrocketing energy costs, President Biden and my colleagues in the Democratic Caucus in this House continue to push for a historically large multitrillion-dollar spending bill called Build Back Better that will raise taxes and seriously damage domestic energy production, which I completely don't understand, nor does anyone in my district.

As well, it has special interest tax cuts, and it will not cost zero. Can we please stop insulting the people? It will cost trillions, all the while suppressing our economy and opportunity.

When you are in a hole, Mr. Speaker, you don't keep digging, but our Democrat friends continue to push for far-left policies that will further drive inflation by creating excess demand with no building of supply, which hurts low-income and middle-class families the hardest.

Now is the time for Congress to pass pro-growth, free market legislation that will actually empower our economy and put more money into the pockets of the American taxpayer, not in the coffers of Washington.

Mr. Speaker, the solutions are actually kind of simple. We must follow our rule book, which is known as the Constitution. We must respect and abide by our oath to the Constitution, not with some crazy mandates coming out of Washington. We must strengthen our national security, including securing our borders.

We must strengthen our economy, not grow our government. No one in my district is saying, hey, the Federal Government is not big enough. Let's expand it by 30 percent.

We must continue to focus on making America the land of opportunity, the land of independence, not the land of dependence. That is not what we wrote way back when. This is done through education and through driving career opportunities.

Mr. Speaker, we, as well, need to have an understanding that it is our job to be the adults in the room and be fiscally responsible with the taxpayers' money. It is not our money; it is the taxpayers' money.

So the American people deserve better. They deserve better from this House. We need to deliver. Truly, the idea of America depends upon it.

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