Refutes Democrat talking points that businesses are to blame for “shrinkflation”
WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, today in a hearing called out Banking Committee Democrats for holding a hearing on “shrinkflation” to echo Biden Administration talking points and deceive the American people about the actual source of high prices and record inflation: excessive spending on progressive policies.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty: “Mr. Chairman, I’m wondering why we’re having this meeting today.
I’ve been very surprised by the fact that we’re going through some type of blame-shifting exercise where we know what the real cause of inflation is here in America. And the cause of inflation in America right now, over the past three and a half years, has to do with policies that have been implemented by the Biden Administration and by Democrat legislation that was passed without a single Republican vote.
The American Rescue Plan, as it was called, the Inflation Reduction Act, as it was called, dumping trillions of dollars into the economy, stimulating demand way beyond what the economy could encounter, you jack up demand, and at the same time, imposing massive regulatory constraints that suppress supply. It’s obvious what’s going to happen; prices go up. The American family, the American consumer, can’t withstand this.
Prices are up 19 percent since [President] Joe Biden took office. Young families can’t afford a new home right now. The American public is suffering dramatically, yet here we are in a blame-shifting exercise, trying to argue about how many potato chips are in a bag of potato chips.
Look, the American public can see right through this. Whether we pay the same price for fewer potato chips or pay more for the equivalent number of potato chips, inflation is real, and inflation is the product of policies that have been implemented that are damaging the American economy.
You think about the blatant vote buying that the Biden Administration has undertaken with student loan forgiveness. Again, billions of dollars more into the economy, putting it on the backs of hardworking Americans to pay off doctors, lawyers, and people with graduate degrees.
The American public can see through this; the American public is suffering.
We’ve got bank failures; we’ve got serious issues that this committee should be addressing. Yet here we are today talking about some sloganeering exercise called ‘shrinkflation’.
This is not what we should be considering, Mr. Chairman.”
###