The Washington Examiner
Sen. Rick Scott
July 9, 2024

Think about how much better your life was in 2019. Former President Donald Trump created the best economy in our lifetimes. The Trump tax cuts and innovative economic policies, such as the creation of opportunity zones, allowed businesses to create good, high-paying full-time jobs, and gross domestic product grew at a consistent rate of more than 2% per year. America was strong at home and abroad. 

Then came President Joe Biden.

Biden and the Democrats hijacked the COVID-19 pandemic to force America into a new era of super-government control and, with it, unbelievably reckless government spending. Under the Biden administration, the national debt has skyrocketed by nearly $8 trillion and is now nearly $35 trillion. 

You would think that in the face of these terrifying numbers, Biden would reverse course. Instead, he’s doubled down and recently proposed a $6.8 trillion budget.

Let’s put this into perspective: the population has increased by only 2% since 2019, but spending has increased 55% during the same time. When you think about it, that is $400,000 in government spending per new person in the population.

The cost of this spending and debt is skyrocketing inflation and a historic burning of tax dollars on federal interest expense. These are the consequences of this administration’s failed Bidenomics agenda, and if it is not stopped it will destroy our country.

Inflation has skyrocketed since Biden took office. The cost of eggs is up 84% and beef is up 47%. The cost of rent is up 21% and the price of gasoline is up 63%. These high prices are piling up, and living day to day now costs families in my home state of Florida an extra $1,203 a month. This means that to live the same life they did before Biden took office, folks have spent an additional $28,812 in after-tax dollars over the past three years. 

Our government’s massive debt and reckless spending caused this, and people in every state are rightly furious that so-called leaders in Washington are fueling the problem.

I grew up in public housing. I’ve been blessed in life and have had success in business, but I know where I started. I remember watching my mother work multiple jobs to make ends meet. She worked herself to exhaustion just to make sure we could eat something, and some nights we still went to bed hungry because there just wasn’t enough to make it work.

That’s why I get so mad about what is going on in Washington, D.C., when these massive spending bills are shoved down our throats without any consideration for what it means for hardworking families — the ones like mine growing up — who are getting kicked in the teeth every day with skyrocketing inflation and fewer full-time jobs. They are getting pushed around and being forced to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. 

If you don’t believe this is happening in America today, look at the latest jobs reports.

There are 100 million working-age people who are not working because Democratic policies have made it more attractive for people in this country to sit on the sidelines than to get a job. Unemployment has now risen to 4%. Year over year, part-time employment was up 1.8 million jobs in June — a 6.9% increase — and over the last year, the United States has lost 1.5 million full-time jobs, all thanks to Bidenomics. 

These figures represent real people and are another reminder that the Bidenomics agenda is working against the public and ripping the chance of the American dream away from them.

And yet the federal government continues to sleepwalk into a massive fiscal buzz saw. We must force Washington to admit its failures, cut the overzealous spending that has fueled inflation and hurt families with skyrocketing prices, and rein in Biden’s massive government and the burdensome regulatory environment that is suffocating businesses and destroying opportunity. We did it when I was governor of Florida and we can do it in Washington, too.

I believe that we can fully fund the things that matter in government while getting rid of the waste that has caused the problems before us. We can and must protect programs such as Social Security and Medicare from seeing impacts to benefits because of the consequences of Democrats’ reckless spending. 

Many of us are also fighting to rein in waste and require a supermajority vote of Congress for any tax or fee hikes to make sure that your government can’t easily force you to pay more to foot the bill for its spending addiction.

If we don’t dramatically change the way Washington functions, we will lose our country. Republicans cannot continue to consent to business as usual in Washington, and that’s exactly why I’m running to be the next Senate Republican leader. 

Republicans standing up and demanding fiscal sanity is the only hope we have to save our great nation. We must regain control of Washington, stop caving to Democrats’ radical agenda, and put America back on the path to fiscal sanity.

Republican Rick Scott represents Florida in the U.S. Senate. He is the former governor of Florida.