The Impact of Inflation

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DONALDS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill) for yielding.

Energy prices are up over 35 percent. Groceries have surged more than 11.9 percent. The consumer price index is up 9.1 percent. The producer price index is up close to 12 percent.

None of this was happening before the American Rescue Plan was passed by Congressional Democrats and signed into law by Joe Biden. Before that time period, our inflation rate was holding steady between 2 and 3 percent.

What happened? What happened was the Congressional Democrats and the President of the United States, Joe Biden, unleashed a labor shortage on the United States. People did not have to go to work in order to continue to buy goods. So what happens when you take people out of the workforce is that they have money to spend, but there is not enough supply in the economy because enough people are not working to provide the products for enough goods. So if there are not enough goods, but everybody has money, prices go up. It happens every single time.

This is very simple. Even Lawrence Summers, who was an economic adviser to Bill Clinton, said that the American Rescue Plan was going to unleash a massive inflation in the United States. House Republicans said if you pass that bill, it is going to unleash a massive inflation the United States.

So the American people need to know and understand that it is the policies of Congressional Democrats and Joe Biden that have unleashed the worst inflation most Americans have ever seen in their lives.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source