Watch Kennedy’s comments here. 

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) released the following statement on the historic rate of inflation and record gas prices affecting Louisiana families under President Joe Biden, including their causes and remedies. 

Excerpts of his comments include:

“Inflation is gutting all of us like a fish.”

. . .

“I know many of you feel like government has let you down and that government doesn’t care about you or about your future, or you kids’ future, and I feel the same way sometimes.

“People are having to dig into their savings. A dozen eggs just jumped from $1.62 to $2.52. A single pound of ground beef was $4.66 a year ago. Now it’s $5.41. Chicken is up more than $4 a pound.  

“Food banks in our state are even having to cut back. They’re having trouble stocking their shelves to feed our people. And, look, it’s summer: Electricity costs are up 11%.

“Used cars and trucks are up 23%. You can’t afford to put gas in your car or truck even if you can buy one, and we’re seeing just record prices every day.

“This inflation, there’s nothing magical about its cause. [The] federal government just printed too much money. I mean, the last bill that President Biden passed—he just put us over the top: It was $2 trillion dollars. $2 trillion dollars! That’s 2,000 billion dollars. 

“And they said it was a COVID bill, but it wasn’t. It was really an expansion of our already generous welfare program. . . . And a lot of the money was wasted.”

. . .

“They built a $28.5 million apartment complex in Seattle, Washington for the homeless, with views of the Space Needle in Washington.

“In Rhode Island, they spent $53,000 remodeling a city hall and buying ergonomic chairs.

“In New York, they used $12 million to expand a minor league baseball stadium.

“In Arizona, they spent $7.2 million to increase the prize money at horse racing tracks.

“We can get this inflation under control, but we’ve got to do two things: Number one, we’ve got to stop spending money we don’t have, and we’ve got to stop printing it. We’ve got to do what you do every day and live within your budget. 

“And number two, the president has just got to get his boot off the throat of the oil and gas industry. Oil and gas prices are not going to come down as long as we’re having to buy oil from foreign countries at these inflated prices. Oil and gasoline are not going to come down until we go back to producing our own. It’s just that simple. And we can get there if the Biden administration will stop its war on the oil and gas community.”

View Kennedy’s full comments here.