Inflation Hurts

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEUSER. Mr. Speaker, the latest inflation numbers are in. Inflation has increased 7.1 percent in the last year, and in my home State of Pennsylvania, it has increased 12 percent.

Despite the Biden administration celebrating, nobody in my district is celebrating. There is no celebrating when my constituents go to the grocery store, the gas station, and when they pay their home heating bills. They feel this pain every day.

This inflation has primarily been caused by the assault on our domestic energy and excessive government spending. We are now in discussions on our appropriations bill.

Mr. Speaker, not only is the plan to add over 7 percent to compensate for inflation--which was originally created by such excessive spending--we are now going to double down and spend hundreds of billions of dollars in excess of pre-COVID levels. In fact, the Government funding bill being discussed is 25 percent more than prepandemic levels and 10 percent more than last year.

There is no merit to this continued spending spree. It will only further drive inflation and grow our deficit which, in turn, incurs more interest to be paid on our debt. All the while the Fed is increasing interest rates to further burden my constituents and to also dampen our economy.

This is absolutely ``gas backwards'' policy.

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