With a report released last week showing inflation reached 8.3 percent in April, U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., took to the House floor to weigh in on the matter.
“Record-high inflation coupled with workforce shortages and supply chain disruptions, have hurt all Americans and have been catastrophic for small businesses, with every sector of our economy impacted,” said Bilirakis. “Parents desperately looking for baby formula can’t find any on the shelves, and other products that are available have surged in price. I am also gravely concerned that we are spiraling toward a recession and yet many of my colleagues seem to think the only answer is to spend more. Let me clear, we cannot spend our way out of this crisis. We must stop the reckless spending that is fueling this problem and make tough choices about our priorities, just as each one of our constituents are being forced to do!”
Earlier in the week, Bilirakis’s concerns over the economic crisis caused him to vote against the $40 billion Ukrainian spending package.
“I unequivocally support the people of Ukraine and remain steadfast in my opposition to Putin’s unjustifiable invasion. I have strongly advocated for and voted in favor of previous measures to provide weapons to help the Ukrainian people defend their democracy. However, the additional Ukraine spending package released just hours before the scheduled vote included a plan for the U.S. to borrow an additional $40 billion to send to Ukraine without any fiscal offset. By comparison, $40 billion is nearly the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, Coast Guard, TSA, and ICE combined. We’ve already given a significant amount of money and valuable weapons to Ukraine and continue to apply severe economic sanctions against Russia. I am deeply concerned that President Biden does not seem to have a cohesive strategy with regard to Ukraine. We simply cannot keep providing blank checks for a war that may continue to drag on indefinitely, without any regard for the negative impact that doing so would have on our already troubled economy,” he said.
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