The Congressman Who Voted for the Inflation Wants Credit for Noticing It

What You Need To Know:

• What Beyer said this week. On a call hosted by a progressive advocacy group, Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA-08) blamed rising food, fuel, and healthcare costs on Republicans: “Republicans have done almost nothing to lower prices. They have total control of government.” He leaned on his 46 years running a car dealership to prove he understands money (Virginia Mercury).
• Here is what he left out. From 2021 to 2023, Beyer was Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee — Congress’s own in-house economics shop. Democrats held the White House, the House, and the Senate. Total control. And on his watch, inflation hit 9.1% in June 2022, the highest in more than 40 years (BLS, CBS News).
• He voted for the fuel. Beyer voted yes on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021 (House Clerk, Roll Call 72). The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco later estimated that pandemic-era federal spending “may have contributed to about 3 percentage points” of U.S. inflation by the end of 2021 (FRBSF Economic Letter).
• The economy shrank. Twice. GDP fell in the first quarter of 2022 and again in the second — two straight quarters of contraction, the definition of a recession most regular families grew up with (CNN Business).
• He blamed Republicans then, too. In February 2022, with his own party running every branch of government, Chairman Beyer put out a statement accusing Republicans of “sabotaging efforts to address inflation and lower costs for U.S. workers and families” (Joint Economic Committee). By his own rule this week, the party with total control owns the prices. He just doesn’t think the rule applies to him.
• Then he promised the fix. When the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August 2022, Beyer declared: “we’re lowering costs and bringing down inflation in the near term” (JEC). Prices rose about 21.5% over the four Biden years (Texas A&M PERC). Every dollar in your wallet buys a fifth less than it did when he took that vote.
• This is the whole Democrat playbook. When their guy is in charge, inflation is “global” and “pandemic-induced” and somehow Republicans’ fault. When our guy is in charge, it’s a “Republican Price Tag.” Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi and AG Jay Jones have controlled every lever in Richmond since January and have not reversed the Dominion rate increase that pushed your power bill up $16 a month. Same script.

Don Beyer’s lecture has an expiration date, and it’s November 3. Beyer is asking for a seventh term, and nearly a third of his own party’s primary voters already said no. Tony Sabio is the Republican nominee for Virginia’s 8th District — more than fifteen years in the Navy, the Secret Service, and the CIA before he ever asked anyone for a vote, then a private-sector career growing small businesses into international ones.

Tony and his wife Abigail are raising five children in Northern Virginia, one adopted through the Commonwealth’s own foster system. His “Promise for America” is five plainly named bills on energy costs, jobs, small business, public safety, and health care — not a blame game.

Beyer has a $2 million war chest and eleven years of incumbency; Sabio has a résumé and a message that regular families in Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and eastern Fairfax are ready to hear.

That’s where you come in.

Go to sabioforcongress.com and sign up to knock doors, make calls, host a yard sign, or chip in what you can. Then bring one neighbor with you — the one who’s tired of being told inflation is somebody else’s fault.

Districts like this don’t flip because of ads. They flip because common-sense Virginians decide to show up.