52 Weeks of Broken Promises
Floor Speech
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Mr. HERN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for the opportunity to speak to everyone tonight.
Madam Speaker, this week marks a historic milestone, the 1-year anniversary of the Biden Presidency. There is a date in January that 1 year ago has affected all Americans, and that was the election of Joe Biden to the Presidency, his taking office.
Looking back at the previous 12 months, several words come to mind: failure, confusion, disarray, pain, dishonesty.
I am sure that many of my colleagues will touch on these and many other themes relevant to what has unfolded at the White House since its latest occupant took office some 11 months ago. However, I want to focus on one word that has defined the Biden administration this year, and that is ``inflation.''
Every single month since Biden took office, inflation has risen higher. In the past 11 months, inflation has reached its highest level in 40 years.
Most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have never experienced this type of inflation. The last time it was this bad, ``E.T.'' was showing in theaters. Jimmy Carter, the man largely responsible for those hardships, was a one-term President for this very reason.
Thanks to the Biden job-killing policies, taxpayers are paying the price. Our economic recovery is stagnant. Our small businesses are being crushed out of existence. December brought us to a 7 percent increase in inflation over the previous year, a number that American families are feeling every single day in their pocketbooks.
While inflation is up 7 percent, wages have only risen 4.7 percent, meaning that real wages are actually negative, not positive. Americans are paying a whopping $3,500 more for basic necessities than they were last year. For all the back-patting Biden has done for the dismal number of jobs created under his administration, we are still over 4 million jobs short of prepandemic levels.
This is the Biden economy. Polling proves that inflation is the top- of-mind issue for the vast majority of Americans. So you would think that this administration would be doing everything in their power to alleviate that burden. Instead, they are focused on flushing the markets with even more unchecked spending. When will it end?
The President's dismal approval rating isn't a result of his standing with Republican voters, who haven't liked him from the start. Rather, Democrat and independent voters across the country are voicing their strong displeasure with how poorly our country has been run this past year.
We know what works, and we know what doesn't. What the President is doing is only exacerbating the problem, something just about everyone outside of D.C. knows.
The White House must stop the spending spree, stop imposing unconstitutional mandates, and stop pushing radical legislation. The best thing this President could do right now is just get out of the way.
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