WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Jason Smith, Republican Leader of the House Budget Committee, has issued the following statement after the Consumer Price Index showed inflation hitting a forty-year high for the fifth consecutive month, of 8.5 percent:
“President Biden’s inflation crisis has turned the American Dream into an unaffordable nightmare for working Americans. Biden’s policies are robbing families and retirees of their hard-earned savings and undercutting workers’ wages more and more each month as prices rise. Americans paid a $3,500 inflation tax in 2021 and are projected to pay a $5,200 inflation tax this year. No wonder two-thirds of Americans say President Biden’s inflation crisis has directly caused them hardship, forcing over fifty percent of Americans to cut back on food and groceries.”
“As working families in Missouri struggle to get back on their feet, President Biden is intent on pulling the rug out from underneath them once again. In his fiscal year 2023 budget, the President absurdly predicts that inflation will average 4.7 percent this year. To meet his budget projections, inflation would have to miraculously drop to 2 percent immediately, and remain there for the next decade. On top of that, his budget proposes to continue the same inflationary policies that have caused the highest spike in prices in forty years. These price spikes were the predictable result of the Democrats’ $2 trillion bailout bill enacted last March, yet somehow Washington Democrats have convinced themselves that the solution to fighting inflation is to spend more. As long as Congress remains under one party, Democrat rule, people in Missouri and all over America will be stuck in this inflation nightmare.”
Key Points:
- President Biden’s FY23 budget proposes $73 trillion in spending, a 66% increase over the previous ten years
- President Biden’s FY23 budget assumes inflation will average 4.7% this year – to meet his budget’s projections, inflation would have to miraculously drop to 2% immediately and remain there for the next decade
- Inflation has risen 10.4% since Joe Biden became President
- Gas prices have risen 88.9% since Joe Biden became President
- Real wages have dropped 3.6% since Joe Biden became President
- House Democrats passed $7.5 trillion in new spending last year
- President Biden’s $2 trillion so-called American Rescue Plan was the sparkthat helped ignite the inflation crisis
- A majority of Americans saythe economy is in a depression or recession