OPINION:
Over the last few months, American mothers and parents everywhere have been in panic mode, scrambling to find baby formula after the Biden administration botched the crisis of its own creation. Adding insult to injury, a recent flood in Michigan has delayed the plant’s return to normal operations, delaying a return to normal supply. And if women didn’t already have enough to worry about, we’re now seeing a nationwide tampon shortage.
This situation begs the question: What does the nationwide tampon shortage tell us about the future of our economy?
After photos from consumers surfaced on the internet showing images of empty shelves, Procter & Gamble, one of the leading manufacturers of menstrual care supply products, admitted that it’s aware of consumers’ struggle to find tampons in stores and online. Some say this has been going on for months, even though the shortage is just making headlines in the last few weeks.
A few testimonies from women online say they must travel between at least three different retailers before finding a singular box of tampons. And even if a box can be found, get ready to pay more — according to data from Nielsen, the average cost for a package of tampons is up nearly 10% from last year, with pads and other menstrual products experiencing an over 9% price hike as well.
The costs of materials in nearly every industry have skyrocketed over the last year, as the Producer Price Index is at a current level of 138.66, up nearly 11% from one year ago. For tampons, this includes products like cotton, which have surged in price by 40%, absorbent fibers by 25%, and plastics other resins are up 9.5% from last April. To make matters worse, plastics and super-absorbents — the two main components of tampons — come from oil, which we all know has risen in price with gas prices nationwide surging over $5 per gallon, the highest average ever recorded in our nation’s history.
Historic inflation is causing households to pay more for gas, groceries and necessities. Yet, the Biden administration continues to peddle a false narrative in a lousy attempt to cover up its own failures — that somehow, Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for the current state of our economy, more famously calling it the “Putin Price Hike.”
The truth is that the issues we’re experiencing in this country are a result of congressional Democrats and the Biden administration’s policies. While the liberal media refuses to acknowledge the administration’s role in this process with runaway government spending, the facts are difficult to ignore.
When Mr. Biden took office in January 2021, inflation was running at a 3% annual rate, up 1.6% from the previous year under President Donald Trump. When Mr. Biden destroyed domestic oil production by canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, a move that made America dependent on energy imports from countries including Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Colombia.
In talking with farmers in many of our southeastern states, a pattern has emerged. The Biden administration’s policies have left them in such a tailspin that many have opted not to plant cotton at all or have significantly reduced the number of acres they manage. July estimates have not yet been released, but analysts predict Cotton Belt weather issues and the costs of farming will force yields down. Labor shortages, soaring fuel prices, a volatile and unpredictable administration threatening tax changes to family farms, and increased hostility from green new deal motivated regulators have been driving factors.
It stands to reason that Mr. Biden’s war on American energy and American agriculture has led to an all-out war on the American people with women and working-class families getting hit the hardest. Make no mistake, the only way to fix this mess is to restore much-needed balance and perspective in Washington. That starts with Republicans taking back the House in 2022 to implement real, fact-based, commonsense solutions to the problems caused by an administration that is overwhelmingly failing the American people.
We need to stop injecting millions of dollars into a federal reserve that is already drowning in debt. We need to unleash America’s domestic capabilities by restoring the Keystone XL pipeline project and becoming, once again, energy independent. We need to incentivize workforce participation and deregulate industry. And most of all, we need to restore Americans’ faith that soon enough, store shelves will be stocked, prices will fall, affordability will once again become the norm, and the Biden Price Hike will soon become a distant memory.
• Kat Cammack is an American politician and political adviser serving as the U.S. representative for Florida’s 3rd Congressional District.
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