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Seattle small business owner rips Biden for passing the buck on inflation: 'Ashamed he's my president'
Maher Youssef, owner of Pluto Organic Cafe in Seattle, pinned the blame for inflation on top lawmakers, including the president, instead of big corporations.
www.foxnews.com
A Seattle small business owner, outraged over sky-high costs that have put his livelihood in a bind, said he's "ashamed" to call Biden his president because of his handling of the economy.
"He doesn't know anything," Maher Youssef, owner of Pluto Organic Café in the Evergreen State, said Thursday on "Fox & Friends First."
"The gas is double [the cost], the food is double. I can't raise the prices because if I do that, the customers… they're not going to come," he continued, accusing political leaders of not wanting to take the appropriate steps to lower costs for Americans.
"I'm American. I'm ashamed he's my president… that's the wrong guy."
President Biden, meanwhile, insists big corporations are to blame for price hikes and called on them to use "record profits to reduce prices" in a statement released Wednesday.
"Fighting inflation remains my top economic priority," Biden continued.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates the costs of several essential goods used in homes and businesses have skyrocketed since Biden took office in January 2021, including an approximately 52% increase in egg prices, a nearly 16% hike in milk costs, a nearly 24% increase in the price of bread and a 19% hike in coffee costs.
The differences are burdensome for those like Youssef, who said he has taken to working long hours seven days a week.
"I can't really see my kids as much as I used to," he said.
"I leave home by 5:00 in the morning. I come home by like 5:00 or 6:00 every day, seven days a week because I can't afford to pay people maybe $20 something an hour, plus everything's expensive."
Youssef's café makes omelets with salsa on the side. Not only have egg costs risen, he said, but the cost of the salsa used for the meal has climbed from $9 to $12.
"In the second day, it went to $19 bucks," he claimed.
"What you want me to do? Not buy it? How am I going to run my business? [These are] very small things, but [they] affect us so much. [They] make my profit lower and lower and lower."
Other businesses have been sidelined by inflation among other issues, including crime that has devastated several major U.S. cities.
San Francisco's oldest toy store that inspired Pixar's iconic "Toy Story" film, for instance, announced it would shutter its doors permanently this year as the issues became so pervasive.
