{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=68F3F443-BD85-4719-B0BC-26DB210C6D49", "With Families Hurting, Democrats Want to Try Inflating Their Way Out of Inflation", "2021-11-17", "2021", "2021-11", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Democrats\u2019 reckless tax and spending spree:\n\n\u201cA lot has gone wrong since this unified Democratic government took the reins in January.\n\n\u201cLook at foreign policy. The Biden Administration\u2019s clumsy retreat from Afghanistan left Americans behind who wanted out and handed the country to a government staffed with terrorists who used to be locked up in Guantanamo Bay.\n\n\u201cLook at energy independence. Or, I should say, energy dependence. President Biden cancelled our own Keystone XL pipeline but cleared the path for a new pipeline for Vladimir Putin. The amount of Russian oil that America has to import has already nearly doubled on the Democrats\u2019 watch.\n\n\u201cLook at the border. Illegal crossers are flooding across our southern border, an all-time high \u2014 but Democrats have interior enforcement arrests down to a decade low.\n\n\u201cBut there is no question what crisis is top of mind for middle-class families. There is no question what is keeping working Americans awake at night.\n\n\u201cInflation. The runaway prices and unpredictability that Democrats\u2019 policies have fueled.\n\n\u201cNinety percent of Americans told one recent survey they are \u2018somewhat\u2019 or \u2018extremely\u2019 concerned with inflation.\n\n\u201cWe are a huge and diverse country, Mr. President. It\u2019s hard to get 9 in 10 Americans to agree on almost anything. But less than one year under Democrats\u2019 policies has 90 percent of America worried about inflation.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s no wonder. Year-on-year, consumer prices have risen faster than they have in over three decades. Last month marked the fifth month in a row that inflation has topped 5%.\n\n\u201cThese across-the-board numbers can sound a little abstract. Let\u2019s make this very tangible.\n\n\u201cIn the past year, buying meat, fish, and eggs has gotten 12% more expensive. A gallon of gas costs the average American $1.31 more than it did a year ago. And heaven forbid anyone having to replace a family car this year \u2013 used auto prices are up 26%.\n\n\u201cEven getting family and friends together for Thanksgiving is a much pricier prospect than it was last year. Turkey, alone, is an extra 25 cents per pound. Factor in all the fixings, and some estimates project a feast next week will run families up to 15% more than last year.\n\n***\n\n\u201cFor a while, the White House tried to downplay the problem. President Biden and his team told American families that costs weren\u2019t really rising as much as it seemed\u2026\n\n\u201cOr that, okay, costs were rising, but it would only last a few months\u2026\n\n\u201cOr, as some liberals argued, that if you remove food costs, housing costs, and transportation costs from the equation, inflation wasn\u2019t really so bad!\n\n\u201cSome have tried to argue that rampant inflation is actually a high-class problem to have, because at least we aren\u2019t in a recession. I\u2019m not kidding. I guess they think working Americans should stop complaining and be grateful things aren\u2019t even worse.\n\n\u201cBut a sad irony is that inflation is exactly the opposite of a high-class problem. Inflation is like a hugely regressive tax hike that hits the middle class, the working class, and the poor far more than it hurts wealthy people.\n\n\u201cThe three biggest drivers of the staggering 6.2% inflation rate we logged last month were housing, transportation, and food. Those aren\u2019t luxuries, they\u2019re essentials, and they take up a much bigger share of families\u2019 budgets from the middle class on down.\n\n\u201cThe Democrats\u2019 inflation is functioning like an ultra-punitive tax on the American families who can least afford it. Exactly the opposite of a \u2018high-class problem.\u2019\n\n***\n\n\u201cIt didn\u2019t have to be this way, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThis inflation spike wasn\u2019t just predictable. It was, in fact, predicted.\n\n\u201cThis past spring, I warned my Democratic colleagues right here, on this floor, that their unbelievably expensive and poorly-targeted spending bill that masqueraded as COVID relief would turn our strong economic recovery into an inflationary mess. Many of my Republican colleagues sent the same warning.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats didn\u2019t have to take our word for it. Even their own favorite liberal economists \u2014 like President Clinton\u2019s Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and President Obama\u2019s CEA Chairman Jason Furman \u2014 warned that liberal bill might supercharge inflation.\n\n\u201cNow our Democratic colleagues want to ram through another, even bigger reckless taxing and spending spree that would make inflation even worse. Many of those same liberal economists support this new spending spree because of all the left-wing goodies that are packed into it. But even they largely admit the package would make inflation even worse next year.\n\n\u201cSteven Rattner, a senior economic advisor to President Obama, just wrote in the New York Times that, \u2018the original sin was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan\u2026 That has contributed materially to today\u2019s inflation levels.\u2019\n\n\u201cHe goes on to say that Democrats\u2019 new taxing and spending spree, \u2018can be deemed \u2018paid for\u2019 only if one embraces budget gimmicks, like assuming that some of the most important initiatives will be allowed to expire in just a few years. The result [is] a package that front-loads spending while tax revenues only arrive over a decade.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. Rattner cites an outside estimate that, \u2018the plan would likely add $800 billion or more to the deficit over the next five years, exacerbating inflationary pressures.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis is a former top advisor to President Obama \u2014 a liberal Democrat \u2014 explaining that the Democrats\u2019 new proposal as currently constituted would make inflation worse. He says it\u2019s the Democrats\u2019 proposal itself that needs to be built back better.\n\n\u201cPresident Biden and his party have already brought needless pain on American families with their reckless spending.\n\n\u201cRamming through another multi-trillion-dollar partisan wish list would compound the damage.\n\n\u201cThe hardworking men and women of this country cannot afford to be guinea pigs in a socialist experiment where Democrats try to inflate their way out of inflation.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:30:49Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=68F3F443-BD85-4719-B0BC-26DB210C6D49"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5220176428556442, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}