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Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the harmful economic consequences Americans are seeing from President Biden's reckless tax-and-spend agenda. Earlier this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest Consumer Price Index figures for the month of August, showing that inflation increased 8.3 percent compared to August 2021. Inflation has now exceeded 8 percent for 6 straight months. This persistent high inflation is causing price increases for American families at the grocery store, the gas pump, and for basic housing needs, leaving many Americans struggling to make ends meet.

Rather than getting government out of the way, increasing domestic energy production, securing our border, and taking meaningful action to reduce inflation, the Biden administration is instead doubling down on its failed economic policies. Gas prices are $1.34 per gallon higher than when President Biden took office, and diesel fuel prices are even higher, at nearly $2.40 per gallon more than January 2021. A gallon of diesel now costs more than $5 a gallon.

Yet, last month, as followup to the massive $2 trillion spending package from March 2021 that fueled the inflationary fire we are now dealing with, Democrats jammed through another package on a party-line vote, a tax-and-spend bill that imposes new energy taxes and Green New Deal-style subsidies that will only worsen our energy crisis and weaken our Nation's economic and national security.

Ironically, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act does nothing to reduce inflation. Analysis by economists at Penn Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Federal Reserve, Moody's Analytics, the Congressional Budget Office, and others, all agree that this bill will do nothing to help reduce inflation.

Meanwhile, the cost of food at the grocery store has increased 13.5 percent over the last 12 months--the largest 12-month increase since March 1979. Yet the Biden administration has done nothing to help alleviate these inflationary price increases on Americans.

This week, we neared the brink of another inflationary supply chain disaster as railroad unions threatened to go on strike. Obviously, shutting down freight rail movement throughout the country would be a huge disruption to our economy. It cannot be overstated how significant a rail strike would be to our national supply chain. With fall harvest, particularly for my State, that is a huge concern, and it is vitally important that we avoid a rail strike.

On the energy front, North Dakota is a huge provider of energy for this Nation. So it is very important. Whether it is our energy producers or energy producers across this country, we need to empower our domestic energy production. We also need to get our debt and deficit under control. We need to help our farmers and ranchers produce the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world. We need to address the supply chain issues that continue to be disruptive to our economy and create more inflation.

The Biden administration needs to stop with the tax-and-spend agenda if we are to get this inflation under control.
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