As Americans grapple with soaring living costs, one Texas official is embarking on a campaign to highlight the economic challenges he says were caused by President Joe Biden’s administration.
The “Gas & Groceries Truth Tour,” led by Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and former Texas House member Sid Miller, draws a direct line between the current economic strain experienced by Americans and the Biden administration, which he claims has caused drastic inflation.
The bus tour, which kicked off this week at the Republican National Convention, will travel through all of America’s swing states.
The campaign’s message is straightforward: rising inflation and escalating living costs are a result of Biden’s economic missteps.
“Under Biden, inflation now stands at 6% with a peak of 9%. As a result, prices are up 20% on average while incomes have not kept pace with inflation for the entire Biden term!” Miller wrote in a commentary published by the Texas Scorecard.
The inflation rate for groceries, or “food at home,” has slowed some recently, with a 1.1% increase logged over the past year. However, according to Axios, since Biden assumed office in January 2021, the cost of such items has surged by nearly 21%.
“Farmers were making more money than they ever made [under Trump], the best commodity prices, and there were still reasonable prices at the grocery store,” Miller said when The Dallas Express asked about grocery costs.
The tour bus, wrapped with graphics illustrating the impact of Biden’s policies, will travel across various battleground states. It will be a mobile billboard showing the reality of high grocery bills, rising interest rates, and the difficulty younger Americans face trying to buy a home.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there is a deficit of more than 7 million “affordable” homes for the nation’s 10.8 million extremely low-income families.
“There is no state or county where a renter working full-time at minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment,” the organization states on its website.
“Interest rates are so high that people can’t even get a loan, they can’t qualify for one right now. It wouldn’t matter what the interest rates were if you cannot even qualify,” Miller told DX.
He argued that the current administration’s policies have led to an unsustainable increase in living costs, worsening financial difficulties for many families.
However, the goal of the “Gas & Groceries Truth Tour” is not only to highlight these issues but to gain the support of voters in crucial swing states. By emphasizing the everyday impacts of Biden’s policies, Miller hopes to shift public sentiment and increase former President Donald Trump’s support by 1% in each state visited.
“If you want a strong economy, if you want money in your bank account, and if you want to be able to move out of your parents’ house or buy a house yourself, you need to be voting for Donald Trump,” Miller told DX.
Supporters of Miller’s goals are encouraged to visit the campaign’s website for detailed information on Biden’s economic record and to follow the tour’s progress. Residents of the swing states on the tour route are also invited to attend events and show support in person.
As previously reported by DX, Miller was only a few feet away from Trump during the harrowing attempted assassination of the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13.
The Gas & Groceries Truth Tour is scheduled to visit multiple states, including Virginia, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, before concluding on election day, November 5.