Today, Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI) joined House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (LA), House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (NY), and Congressman Steve Womack (AR) to discuss how the Democrats’ out of touch agenda has caused inflation to reach its highest level in 41 years. Video and text of Congressman Huizenga’s remarks are available below.
Congressman Bill Huizenga:
Well, you've heard the numbers. I'm going to talk a little bit about what that means.
Back in Michigan, we know that this is affecting families, those hardworking taxpayers that are trying to put food on the table, trying to get ready for back to school, they're trying to maybe squeeze in a family vacation and they're not able to do that.
Who is affected are those family farmers. They might be a blueberry farmer or an egg producer that's in my district.
They might be a senior who had to literally put food back on the shelf as they were grocery shopping because they can no longer afford it on their fixed income.
Or maybe they're that young family that had budgeted $150 a month for gas to get back and forth to work and to get the kids around. That's now become a $300 a month line item.
And that day trip out to Lake Michigan so that they could enjoy a Saturday or a Sunday? Well, forget it. Sorry, kids, we're turning the sprinkler on and you're going to have to run through it. That's the extent of the recreational dollars that they have.
So, we understand the issues fully and everybody does, whether they acknowledge it or not. They feel it in their gut. But this should not be a surprise.
This is the frustrating part. I sit on the Financial Services Committee and it is a surprise to my Democrat colleagues every single time that we get some sort of bad economic news.
Now, early on, you had Janet Yellen and even Jay Powell trying to talk about this being transitory and that it was really more about corporate greed and really more about maybe Vladimir Putin and certainly didn't have anything to do with their policies. Well, we know that's not the case. We know that.
Economists will tell you that its monetary policy and fiscal policy. This rampant spending that we have had. This cheap money that has been thrown in that is a significant part of this inflation increase.
We know that it's labor and energy and things like a stimulus checks going out and that seems to be the Democrats' only answer to this. ‘We're going to send you a gas card and send you another stimulus check.’ All that's going to do is add fuel to that inflation fire and we’ve got to stop that.
So on the Financial Services Committee have been talking about this for well over a year. Trying to rein in the Federal Reserve. Trying to rein in Congress's appetite for spending, knowing that that is fueling this. And if we don't do so soon, we are going to be in even worse trouble.
And it is going to be a redo of the Carter Administration and we cannot have that. We cannot allow that to happen.
Original source can be found here.
