Inflation and Our Economy

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Vice Chairman Johnson, for yielding valuable time out of your very busy schedule. Madam Speaker, thank you, ma'am.

The Biden administration's response to the baby formula crisis has been a joke. President Biden has tried to deflect the blame by claiming he wasn't aware of the severity of the shortage until April of 2022.

To me, Madam Speaker, Mr. Chairman, this claim just shows he either has no idea about what is going on in his administration or in this country, or he is a liar, or maybe both.

The FDA received a whistleblower's report, as you well know, in October of 2021 about the sanitation issues at the Abbott manufacturing plant, but they didn't do anything about it. They didn't have any intention to do anything about it.

They only closed the facility in February of 2022 when two precious little babies died after drinking formula from that plant, and to me, that is criminal.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration's signature move, as always, is see a problem, don't do anything, then blame others when things go wrong.

I always remember the words of Harry Truman, ``The buck stops here.'' This President has repeated those, and he has yet to follow his own advice, and I believe things have certainly gone wrong.

The out-of-stock rate for baby formula was recently 70 percent across our great country--70 percent. This means that parents across this Nation are going to be unable to feed their little ones.

This disproportionately affects our low-income families because folks with money generally are going to find something. They are going to find it on the internet, find a friend or somewhere else.

Of course, House Democrats' solution was to give $28 million to a bloated bureaucracy at the FDA to address the shortage. But, of course, $23 million of it was for staff salaries and the administration.

Of course, the bill that passed that was bipartisan cleared up some of the bureaucracy, but that was completely ignored by the media.

It is mainly because the media, by and large, except for a few exceptions, is totally in the tank for this administration. They have so much invested in him that they can't stand to see him fail, which he is--horribly.

I believe throwing money at a problem is not going to make it go away. You need a plan to go with it. You need to cut some of this red tape and bureaucracy. It gets in the way of enacting real solutions.

We still likely won't see any formula hitting the shelves until mid- July--mid-July. I think that is unacceptable, Mr. Chairman. We need to feed our babies today.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership, and as you have told me many times when I was a freshman, that when you are sitting at the table, there will be time enough for counting when the dealing is done. You, sir, are the gambler.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source