We just had an election that turned at least in part on the economy, specifically rising prices due to supply chain issues lingering from the COVID pandemic.
There’s another one coming around the corner, and Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who flipped the competitive Seventh Congressional District in 2018, is assuredly feeling the heat.
Spanberger’s today highlighted a letter that the congresswoman sent to President Biden urging him to appoint a supply chain czar to address supply chain disruptions, a capital idea, actually.
“As America’s economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions to supply chains and labor shortages in key sectors have resulted in delays delivering essential goods and price increases across the economy,” Spanberger wrote in the letter to Biden. “While I am encouraged that the recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes provisions to ease bottlenecks at ports, bolster our trucking workforce, and generally invest in infrastructure essential to the movement of goods domestically, my constituents need immediate action to ease daily price shocks.
“As such, I urge you to appoint a Supply Chain Czar responsible for coordinating a federal response to supply chain disruptions across all relevant agencies, working with state and local governments to address bottlenecks wherever they occur, and finding ways to bolster American manufacturing and supply chain resilience at home.”
That the pandemic hasn’t yet eased is enough headwind for Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Pocketbook issues are always paramount in any election cycle.
It’s not helping that Democrats are dithering over even basic, easy things, like infrastructure.
A party that dithers is a party that withers.
“Fuel prices have soared 12.3 percent over the last month, up 59.1 percent from the previous year. Increased fuel costs are especially devastating for my rural constituents, who more often have long commutes to and from work,” Spanberger said. “Similarly, energy costs for home heating and electricity are quickly increasing. As we approach the winter months, I am concerned that surges in the prices for natural gas, electricity, and home heating oil may force some families to choose between heat and other essentials such as medicine, food, and other utilities.
“In 2020, many districts saw record lines of cars outside our community food banks. While this situation has drastically improved over the last year thanks to COVID relief efforts and a recovering economy, I am deeply concerned that increased food costs could harm those families that are just beginning to recover from the pandemic. Food prices in September 2021 increased by nearly as much as they did during all of 2019, driven by surging costs for meat and poultry. With the Thanksgiving holiday right around the corner, the U.S. Farm Bureau Federation reports that the price for a family of ten’s Thanksgiving meal has increased to $53 this year, up $6 from 2020,” Spanberger said.
Click here to read Spanberger’s letter to President Biden.
Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
