The following are remarks given by retired Kenosha County schoolteacher Sue Kaminski at President Trump’s rally in Racine June 18, 2024.
Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to be here today with you. My husband and I own a home in Bristol, Wisconsin. After 46 years in teaching, I retired in 2016, and my husband retired in 2014. We are proud members of the Kenosha County Republican Party. Presently, I am a Kenosha County Fair Board Director and on the Kenosha County Livestock Team.
Enough about me, because I would like to speak to you this afternoon about the effects of Bidenomics on retired citizens who are on a fixed income. There are three adjectives I use to describe these past 3¾ years: depressing, aggravating, and irritating. We have gone from four years of low gas prices of ($1.75-2.34 a gallon), affordable groceries, a secure border, energy independence, lower interest rates, health care that was expanded allowing for more choices, transparency, and affordability, affordable homeownership, low unemployment, and a low inflation rate of 1.9%, to what we have today: the failed policies under the Biden administration and his Bidenomics plan.
Prices have risen by 20.1% since Biden took office. We here in Wisconsin, and especially the families on fixed incomes, are feeling the pain of all these inflated prices. The high cost of living is even forcing one out of every eight retired persons to return to the work force. A retired nurse speaking to a Fox news reporter said, and I quote, “If I want to continue to live my lifestyle, I need to probably add a few more dollars to my budget. And so I felt like I had to go back to work.”
With Biden’s inflationary fiscal policies, homeownership and even renting apartments has become progressively unaffordable, making both an extreme hardship on middle-class, low-income families, and retired seniors. The median home price in Wisconsin has increased by 43% since Biden took office. As homeowners and renters struggle to pay their mortgages and rent, the illegals storming our southern border are being treated like visiting dignitaries. They receive free housing, cash cards, health care, and cell phones. All this and more courtesy of the taxpaying citizens of the USA. Provided to them by the vote-seeking Biden administration.
Another area that has been hit hard by Bidennomics is Medicare programs. Biden and the Democrats spew that they are protecting and guarding Medicare. In actuality, they are responsible for the only two cuts to Medicare programs in the last 20 years: Obama Care and the IRA. The two plans have stripped funding for Medicare by $1 trillion. Seniors now consider health care costs a financial burden. Retired friends of ours view Bidenomics as the government’s takeover of all facets of our daily lives. My husband and I totally agree.
The Biden-flation has also caused issues with Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund. The bottom line is that all this causes an increase in taxes on seniors. Thus, taxes on Social Security checks jumped up drastically over the past three years, which was a real hardship on over 65 million American seniors.
It is beyond time for a change. The suffering and injustices brought about by this present administration needs to come to a crashing end. We need to secure our border, stop government overreach, stop out of control spending, reduce inflation, bring us back to energy independence, secure the border, clamp down on human trafficking, bring interest rates back to manageable levels, bring back tax relief, protection for Social Security, more affordable energy rates and bring prices for everything back down to what they were under President Trump. It’s time we put back into office the person who has proven his loyalty for America and its citizens. The man who put America First and worked tirelessly to build the USA into the most prosperous economy in the world and he will do it again: President Donald Trump.
—RPKC Member, Sue Kaminski