Rob Portman: “since the Democratic leadership and the Biden administration first proposed the massive tax-and-spend legislation called…”

“since the Democratic leadership and the Biden administration first proposed the massive tax-and-spend legislation called reconciliation 7 weeks ago, I have come to the floor every week to explain what is in this massive tax-and-spend proposal and why I believe it is wrong for the economy at a time of high inflation, low economic growth, and record levels of debt. Before I talk about that, though, I think it is important to consider where we have been, how things could be better. Before the pandemic began, back in February of 2020--largely thanks to commonsense, pro- growth tax reform that was passed in 2017 by Republicans here in the Congress and the Trump administration--we had one of the strongest economies we had ever seen. We had 19 straight months, in February of 2020, of wage growth over 3 percent on an annual basis--19 straight months of wage growth, real wage growth, above inflation--by the way, most of it benefiting lower and middle-income Americans. We had the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country since we started keeping track of it back in the 1950s. Blacks and Hispanics had the lowest unemployment rate ever. Overall, we had the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. It was an opportunity economy. We need to get back to that. Then, of course, as everyone remembers, we had to deal with the effects of COVID-19, including shutting down much of the economy.…”