Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Senate Democrats’ Plan To Address The Affordability Crisis

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on Senate Democrats' plan to address the affordability crisis, specifically his bill to help lower food costs, as the Trump administration fails to deliver on the President's promises to lower prices, instead focusing on a costly war in the Middle East. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Last night, Americans once again turned out in record numbers to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. Enthusiasm is unlike anything we've seen in primaries. In ruby-red states, voters showed up and voted blue at levels you rarely see in a primary. And it's not hard to understand why voters are so enthusiastic-people are fed up with Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.

Just this morning, the Wall Street Journal ran a harrowing story: more Americans are dipping into their 401(k)s just to keep up with everyday expenses. That's not what people want to do. The 401(k)s, in which people put money that they want to use for other things, but they know they need it for their retirement. And now because of high costs, they're being so squeezed that they have to take the money out of the 401(k)s? People hate doing that. People hate cannibalizing their financial futures just to survive the present. This not the "Golden Age" Donald Trump promised. It's a travesty-and Americans deserve better. Americans need focus on the high cost of food not another war in the Middle East.

That's why Democrats are going to do what Donald Trump refuses to do: put the affordability crisis front and center, every day, all year long.

Tomorrow morning, I will be introducing legislation aimed at one of the core drivers of higher food prices: consolidation and monopoly power in the food industry. Grocery prices are higher than ever, and if you can't afford to pay for food, nothing else matters. If more and more of your paycheck is spent on paying for food instead of keeping up with rent or filling up the tank or paying for daycare, you are trapped. And that is how Americans feel today: they feel trapped. Trapped because Donald Trump promised to bring food costs down, and instead they've gone up.

My bill does what Donald Trump hasn't: give Americans a real plan to lower food costs, by breaking the pernicious stranglehold of monopolistic corporate middlemen that have weakened our supply chains and priced gouged consumers at the grocery store. And Democrats will keep going. We recently rolled out our agenda to tackle the housing crisis. Soon we will present our plan to lower the cost of energy, and childcare, and to fix our broken health care system that Republicans have sabotaged by letting premiums skyrocket.

Donald Trump and congressional Republicans had their chance. They promised to make life better for the American people and to lower their costs. But here we are on the brink of yet another war in the Middle East, with families already stretched to the breaking point at home. The American people deserve better, and Democrats are going to fight for it.

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