Sam Graves: The supply chain crisis is real

(From Sixth District Congressman Sam Graves)

We’ve all seen the headlines by now—cargo ships piling up at our ports for weeks, resulting in delays, shortages, and empty store shelves. The supply chain crisis is real. It’s a growing problem that affects every American, no matter where you live, no matter what your political beliefs are, and no matter how much money you make.

Addressing this growing crisis should be at the top of Washington’s to-do list. Unfortunately, what we’ve gotten is a mixture of the Administration denying a crisis exists, downplaying its significance, and actively making it worse. That’s unacceptable.

Pretending the supply chain crisis doesn’t exist isn’t going to make it magically go away. It isn’t just a “high-class problem.” Most importantly, the President’s agenda of hiking taxes, raising spending, imposing draconian vaccine mandates on workers, and paying folks not to work is only making this problem worse.

These socialist policies are only going to fuel more inflation and make it harder to get Americans back to work. That’s a big problem because the ongoing labor shortage is already making it harder to get backed-up cargo ships unloaded and get those goods trucked across the country to fill empty store shelves.

There’s now a record number of container ships backed up at our nation’s ports. This crisis has grown too large to ignore. We have to stop and take a hard look at what we’re doing. We need the President to stop pursuing his radical agenda that’s only making this crisis worse and start pursuing real solutions.

Look, I understand that the President feels the need to cater to progressives in his party, but the reality is that he has a duty to stand up for the American people and work together with leaders of both parties to tackle this crisis. But he’s not. And now is not the time for partisan politics.

I led more than 160 members of Congress in formally urging the President this week to stop ignoring the supply chain crisis, stop pursuing destructive policies that will only make it worse, and start working on real solutions.

This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a real problem that’s having growing impacts on American working families. It’s time for the President to put politics aside and work with us to solve this crisis.