Restore the value of the dollar.
Challenge:
Since Joe Biden took office, the rate of inflation has risen to levels not seen in 40 years.Year-over-year consumer prices have risen, on average, more than 8% in last six months.
SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/bls/news-release/cpi.htm
When the inflation rate is updated each month, it represents the rise in consumer prices for the previous 12 months. For example, in June of 2022, consumer prices had risen 9.1% from June 2021 through June 2022. For working families, the cost of raising a family has been made particularly difficult. See “Charts” below.
Solution:
If elected to the majority, Republicans will freeze new federal discretionary spending and place a moratorium on creating any new federal program, while stopping any significant expansion of federal agencies. Republicans will fight to rescind the wasteful “green energy” spending and expansion of the IRS just passed in the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Stopping inflation is the top priority for Republicans.
Inflation robs Americans of their savings and destroys the value of their paychecks.
Household budgets now buy less since Joe Biden became President. The cost of gasoline has risen more than 40 percent per year. Since January, cost to consumers for electricity has increased annually more than 10 percent.
Groceries are becoming more expensive. In June, the price for milk rose more than 16 percent, on an annualized basis. From October of last year through May of 2022, price increases for ground beef averaged well over 13 percent for the previous 12 months. Buying chicken for the family at the supermarket also cost almost 20 percent more (18.6%) than the previous year. Housing costs have risen steadily at ever-rising rates each month since Joe Biden took office.
History is full of examples where nations have ruined their currencies and impoverished their people with runaway inflation. Studies show that when higher prices become “normal” in an economy, paychecks never keep up with the rate of inflation, especially for working families.
The U.S. federal government now owes more in debt than the size of our entire economy. This new development is dangerous. Inflation occurs when a government fails to keep its financial house in order.
Instead of matching outlays to what it collects in tax revenues, the U.S. has spent recklessly in recent years, opening itself to fraud on a massive scale (estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually), and forcing the Federal Reserve to print trillions of dollars to cover the debt.
The unprecedented injection of printed money during peacetime has produced today’s higher prices. The tipping point came when the Biden administration and Democrats passed the $1.9 trillion so-called “American Rescue Plan” last year. Not only did the law skew its benefits to Democrats’ political supporters, and states that voted for Joe Biden, it was “paid for” completely by issuing new debt.
Another major contributor to inflation is excessive regulation by the federal government. Here again, the Biden Administration has set a record in exacerbating the challenge for working families by issuing an avalanche of new federal regulation, more than the Obama and Trump Administrations did in their respective first years in office combined.
Goldbeck, Dan & Bosch, Dan (2022, January 20); Year One: Assessing the Biden Regulatory Record Against Recent Administrations. American Action Forum. https://www.americanactionforum.org/ research/year-one-assessing-the-biden-regulatory-record-against-recent-administrations/
The last time the federal budget was balanced (1998-2001), Republicans held the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans have balanced the budget before and will do so again. The formula is to stop the creation of any new federal programs and keep “discretionary spending” flat, while encouraging economic growth with tax policy that rewards investment in new factories and equipment – producing higher paying jobs.
Republicans will implement a moratorium on any new federal program and oppose any significant expansion of existing federal agencies. They will vote to rescind much of the just passed in the mis-labelled “Inflation Reduction Act”. With the economy in recession, now is the not the time to unleash 87,000 new IRS agents on small business owners and place more than billions in higher taxes on U.S. manufacturers and other employers.