On the recordJanuary 19, 2022
Several days ago the Department of Labor released statistics on job creation and inflation in the United States. This data should be deeply alarming to every American. This country, over the last year, has dumped trillions of dollars of excess Federal spending into our economy. At the time economists warned us that doing so was dangerously inflationary. Unfortunately, those fears have come to fruition. The statistics for the month of December show inflation at nearly 7 percent on an annualized basis. That is the highest rate of inflation in nearly 40 years. When inflation is caused through government action, as this round of inflation clearly is, it represents an unseen tax that is paid by every American because it raises the prices of everything that we buy. Equally alarming is the fact that real wage growth has not kept up with inflation. In fact, the Department of Labor says that for all of last year real wage growth was negative nearly 2\1/2\ percent. If we don't correct this trend, it is going to result in an entire generation of Americans being driven toward poverty because their wages are not keeping up with the prices that they pay for the goods that they need to survive. Madam Speaker, we need to get our fiscal house in order and correct this runaway Federal spending before our children suffer the consequences.
