Official Congressional Record
Madam President, I rise today to speak about a broken promise, a promise that the President made to the country when he took office. Time and again, the President promised that ``starting on day one'' of his administration, he would ``end inflation''--his words. A year and a half into his term, it is clear that the President not only has broken his word but that he disdains the very notion that he should even try to make good on his pledge. Now, for the vast majority of Americans of all ages and walks of life, of all political stripes, costs aren't a partisan thing, and it is simply clear: It costs more to be an American with Donald Trump as President. Part of why I am speaking today is because, as a new Joint Economic Committee minority report details, American life has become more expensive under this administration. As of June, in my home State of New Hampshire, the average Granite State family has had to pay an additional $4,400 for goods and services since President Trump took office. This toll is exacted from virtually every part of everyday life. In Donald Trump's America, when a person wakes up and starts their day, they now drink coffee that costs around $10 a pound, a 25-percent increase since the President launched senseless trade wars, launched without the support of the American people. After they finish their coffee and drive to work or to drop their children off at school, they do so in a car that now costs more to fill up every time they stop at the pump. Each Granite State family has spent $596 more on gas, in fact, since President Trump launched his reckless, illegal war against Iran--a war he launched without a plan to win. Now, let's say our typical American has a doctor's appointment that day. Assuming that they are able to afford health insurance, they will receive care covered by a plan which premiums rose as much as 50 percent under President Trump. Why? Because the President let Affordable Care Act insurance premiums surge. And at the end of the day, the average Granite Stater returns to a house or an apartment that is also more expensive, as families in our State have so far spent $1,108 more on rent or mortgage payments since President Trump started his term--all because the President refuses to address our country's housing crisis. And after my constituent gets home and goes to pick up her mail, she opens another electric bill. Electricity has gotten so expensive that people in New Hampshire have had to pay $194 more so far this year than last year because the President caused a worldwide energy crisis and canceled clean energy projects. Next on the list, my constituent goes into the kitchen to make dinner, where--you guessed it--the ingredients cost more than they did before Trump took office. Granite Staters paid $310 more for groceries last year than they did the year before. So what has been the cost of the Trump Presidency, a Presidency where food, healthcare, gas, rent, and more have all become more expensive? The costs can be summed up by the figures in this report, but it can also be put more simply. For many in our country, the cost has been nothing less than seeing their chance at the American dream fade before their very eyes. A year and a half into his Presidency, my Republican colleagues are making excuse after excuse for the President's failure to address the American people's basic needs. They need to stop--stop trying to advance the fiction that the President cares about lowering costs or perhaps is trying to lower costs but is getting some bad counsel from his advisers. If the President actually wanted to help the American people, he would listen to them. He would hear that this economy isn't working for them and, for some, well, it is breaking them. If he cared, this man who was supposed to understand the economy, as well as the hopes and dreams of the American people, would acknowledge that he needs to take action to lower costs. And even if he doesn't care, if this President believed that, in America, Presidents are accountable to the American people, he would be working to make life more affordable. But this President neither cares nor thinks he is accountable to anyone other than himself and perhaps his billionaire backers. Just consider, he has attacked and dismissed anyone who says that there is a problem at all. He has called inflation a ``hoax'' and dismissed the cost-of-living crisis as--his words--``made up.'' He says this despite the fact that virtually every American of every political perspective-- at least those who live outside the splendor of Mar-a-Lago--knows that American life has become more expensive under President Trump. So when the American people say that their costs have gone up and the President dismisses inflation as a ``hoax,'' is he saying that American families are lying? Is he suggesting that they should not believe their own eyes, their own understanding of math, when they look at the numbers at the cash register or at the gas pump? Because it is one thing not to solve a problem for American families; it is quite another to essentially say that the American people are lying. What have American families done, what have the people who gave the President the privilege of serving in the highest office in our country done to have their biggest challenge, their greatest anxiety and fear dismissed by the President as a ``hoax''? Should we be surprised that a President who incited a mob to storm the Capitol and tried to overturn the voices and votes of the American people dismisses yet again what they have to say? Maybe the President would be more inclined to help the American people if they were a little less decent and a lot better connected. After all, this is President Trump's Washington, and we know well who this President is. He will save one of his corrupt campaign donors asking for a pardon, but he won't lift a finger to save American families a dime on their groceries. And so I return to the President's promise. When he sought our country's highest office yet again, Donald Trump told the American people to put aside his corruption, his self-dealing, his poor character, his willingness to fan the flames of division and extremism, to forget the way he disrespects our veterans. He wanted us to even forget the attack on this Chamber, to forget the scars of the Capitol Police officers, forget all of this and more because he said he would bring down costs. And now he is dismissive and contemptuous of anyone who asks him to make good on his pledge. He even undermines my Republican colleagues when they do try, in good faith, to lower costs. He actually threatened to block a bipartisan bill to bring down the cost of housing, a law that we were eventually able to pass. Now, Donald Trump has made himself very, very clear. His Presidency will be defined not by lowering costs for families but by raising monuments to himself. It doesn't have to be this way. The American people, right now, want an American dream that they can afford, a dream that doesn't belong just to a privileged few, a dream that is bigger than self-dealing, kickbacks, and self-enrichment schemes in the gilded rooms of Mar-a- Lago. The dreams of the American people aren't focused on golden luxury trappings. Their dreams are less gilded than all of that, but they are also far more noble. Americans want their children to live better lives than they did; with quality, affordable healthcare that can help them rest easier at night; a decent education for their children; a place to build not a gilded ballroom but a home--a home in a country where we don't live fearing one another, divided over politics, but instead united as freedom-loving Americans who know that we are lucky to live in the greatest country on Earth, who love this country too much to ever hate our fellow Americans and who won't let the miracle of self-government die--not in the service of one man's ego, not for anything. The American people want an America that is as good as this Nation's promise. They deserve a President whose word is as good as our people. I yield the floor.
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