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Floor Speech
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Mr. McCONNELL. Last week, we paused to honor the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service to our Nation and in defense of our freedoms.
For families all across America, the long holiday weekend also kicked off the excitement of summer traditions, but, unfortunately, a year- and-a-half into the failed policies of this all-Democratic government, even modest family celebrations came with pricetags that were literally sky high.
Today, the average price of gas in America reached a new record high. There is now just one State in our whole country where average prices haven't passed $4.30. From trips across town to visits with relatives, driving is becoming an even more painful proposition for working families.
In Boyd County, one Kentuckian said it now cost him about $73 to fill up the tank.
I just hope those prices will go down.
Another in Lexington said:
I'm traveling up north to take care of my mother up in Michigan. It's a long haul, and yeah, it's hard when it is this expensive.
And sky-high fuel prices aren't just hurting drivers. April saw the biggest 1-month spike in airfare on record with tickets up nearly 20 percent. The cost of backyard cookouts and all other home-cooked meals are continuing to rise. Prices on everything from ground beef to eggs have clocked the fastest annual increase since 1979.
What about big household purchases? Many families wait for Memorial Day weekend sales to fill a need around the house. Well, tools and hardware are 11 percent more expensive than they were a year ago. Major appliances cost 12 percent more. And furniture is up almost 15 percent.
These record-setting prices have got working families literally surrounded, and the American people know exactly where these hardships are coming from. They know this pain is a direct--a direct--result of the failed policies that Washington Democrats pursued even as everybody warned that their reckless spending would cause inflation.
A little more than a year ago, Democrats dumped $2 trillion of liberal waste onto our economy. Their own experts--their own experts-- told them not to do it. President Obama's top economist warned then it was ``definitely too big for the moment.''
President Clinton's Treasury Secretary said it could ``set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.'' And both of them said it at the time.
It was reported a few days ago that even Secretary Yellen, the President's own Treasury Secretary, knew the spending spree was reckless and wished it were smaller.
But our colleague, the Democratic leader, brushed aside expert concerns, saying that ``I do not think inflationary dangers, at least in the near term, are very real.''
Well, now his party is presiding over out-of-control inflation, the worst in four decades, a year-on-year inflation rate of--listen to this--8.3 percent. And even that terrible number may be an understatement.
In the early 1980s, right after the last bout of inflation this bad, the Bureau of Labor Statistics changed how they measure inflation. Larry Summers has coauthored a new research paper that tries to create an apples-to-apples comparison between the inflation figures today versus 40 years ago.
So here is what they found:
The current inflation regime is closer to that of the late 1970s than it may at first appear.
In other words, Democrats have brought inflation much closer to the bad old days of the late seventies than the official numbers even make it look.
Of course, no matter which way economists measure it, the American people know historic inflation when they feel it. It is impossible to ignore, from the gas pump to the supermarket, to the big-box store.
On Democrats' watch, working families' hard-earned dollars are buying them less and less.
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