{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=9D39BF68-B55D-4DF3-9389-B5D25C1678D1", "President Biden: Be Grateful My Inflation Isn\u2019t Even Worse", "2022-09-19", "2022", "2022-09", "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 inflation:\n\n\u201cLast week, the American people received yet another absolutely crushing inflation report.\n\n\u201cMore than a year after Washington Democrats\u2019 policies set off the worst overall inflation in 40 years, the prices of some of the most essential items for working families are skyrocketing at their fastest rates in a generation.\n\n\u201cElectricity costs are rising faster than they have since 1981. And grocery inflation has eclipsed a high from 1979. Parents trying to put food on the table are now contending with annual price hikes of 16.2% for a loaf of bread, 17% for a gallon of milk, and 40% more for a dozen eggs.\n\n\u201cNow, the very same day this painful news broke, just a few hours later, Washington Democrats threw a party for themselves on the White House lawn to celebrate their economic policies.\n\n\u201cYou cannot make it up.\n\n\u201cThe official numbers had just confirmed that American families have seen the single worst year for both food and electricity inflation since the fallout from Jimmy Carter.\n\n\u201cAnd the Democrats\u2019 response was to throw themselves a party for spending hundreds of billions more, raising taxes, and making working-class Americans pay off the loans of doctors and lawyers.\n\n\u201cYou might think the Biden Administration couldn\u2019t possibly get any more out of touch. You\u2019d think that kind of display would have to take the cake.\n\n\u201cBut alas, Madam President, last night, on \u201860 Minutes,\u2019 President Biden gave an almost comically out-of-touch interview on the inflation crisis.\n\n\u201cThe President argued \u2014 with a straight face \u2014 that the American people ought to be grateful for last month\u2019s terrible inflation report because it could have been even worse.\n\n\u201c\u2018Guess where we are? We\u2019re in a position where, in the last several months, [inflation] hasn\u2019t spiked.\u2019\n\n\u201cStruggling Americans are supposed to be grateful that we have plateaued at a steady, ongoing inflation rate of more than 8 percent?! The President wants a round of applause for steadily clocking month after month after month of the worst inflation in 40 years?\n\n\u201cMadam President, the inflation rate plateauing does not mean that prices themselves have leveled off. It means prices are still steadily climbing all the time! At an historically fast pace, the worst in a generation!\n\n\u201cMonth after month after month, Democrats\u2019 policy failures are continuing to add inflation on top of inflation. The inflation rate plateauing above 8% does not mean that families are catching a break. It means exactly the opposite. It means that families are continuing to see prices go up, and up, and up all the time.\n\n\u201cSimply surviving, just getting by, in Washington Democrats\u2019 economy costs 8.3% more than it did a year ago. But remember, the 12-month numbers now dramatically understate the damage that Democrats have done, because it only looks back one year, when Democrats\u2019 inflation spiral was already up and running.\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s the number that really matters. Since the day that President Biden was sworn in, since the day that this one-party Democratic government took power, our country\u2019s inflation rate has been 13.2%.\n\n\u201cAnd according to President Biden, if you\u2019re angry about that, if parents are upset, if workers are frustrated, they just aren\u2019t putting things in proper perspective.\n\n\u201cConsidering the American people give President Biden an 38% approval rating on his handling of the economy, I\u2019d say it\u2019s the White House that needs to get some perspective, not the working people of this country.\n\n\u201cAnd get this. When President Biden was asked how we can avoid a recession, since Democrats\u2019 policies have forced the Federal Reserve to raise rates sharply, the President doubled down on his fantasy land.\n\n\u201cHe suggested, \u2018we\u2019re growing the economy\u2026 it\u2019s growing in\u2026 a way that it hasn\u2019t in years and years.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut that is complete nonsense. You measure real GDP growth after inflation.\n\n\u201cFrom early 2017 until the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Republican policies had the economy humming along, with robust growth, low unemployment and low inflation. A great trifecta for the American people.\n\n\u201cBut now, with President Biden\u2019s policies in place, we\u2019ve seen two consecutive quarters of real GDP actually falling. Once you account for the inflation that Democrats have caused, our economy is not growing at all. It is shrinking.\n\n\u201cFamilies talk about the term \u2018shrink-flation\u2019 at the grocery store or the big box store.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s when not only have prices gone up, but the size of a package has gone down, so you are both paying more and getting less. Like the size of a bag of chips or a box of cookies, or the number of sheets in a roll of paper towels, or the weight of a bag of fertilizer.\n\n\u201cHigh prices and smaller quantities.\n\n\u201cAnd this is basically what President Biden and Democrats have done to the entire U.S. economy. Everything costs more, even as GDP is shrinking in real terms.\n\n\u201cJust like American families have seen their real wages plummet after inflation, the same thing has happened to the country as a whole, for two quarters and counting.\n\n\u201cThe President might want to talk to a couple of working Americans who are trying to survive under his policies before he sits down for his next TV interview.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:29:59Z"]], "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=9D39BF68-B55D-4DF3-9389-B5D25C1678D1"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8105828892439604, "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"}