Darren Soto: “I thank my dear friend from Illinois (Mr. Schneider) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, you may have heard this, but inflation…”

“I thank my dear friend from Illinois (Mr. Schneider) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, you may have heard this, but inflation was one of the biggest issues in this last election. Let me take you a little way back here. We saw during the height of the pandemic that it caused global inflation. Supply chains broke down, production broke down, and every country felt it, even the U.S. Inflation at one point rose as high as 9 percent. Over many months and many years and through efforts to boost productions, improve supply chains, and improve our infrastructure to get back to normal, we saw it go down to as low as 2.4 percent in September of 2024. Groceries and housing specifically have been a challenge. When President Trump took office, inflation was still under 3 percent. It was still under 3 percent. Hundreds of executive orders have been signed. Some divisive and some illegal, but few, if any, address lowering costs for the American people. Many may have even increased costs. First, the tariffs caused chaos against our own allies. President Trump admitted that this may cause some pain for Americans. Don't we remember he ran on lowering costs? Maybe that was just a joke to get elected, because now suddenly we are going to have to accept some pain because of tariffs that he is trying to impose on the American people. Tariffs equal inflation. Tariffs equal taxes on American consumers.…”