A Republican lawmaker said on Friday that the majority of Americans do not believe the Biden administration’s inflation figures.
Inflation is up 8.6 percent, according to the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), but the American people believe it’s much higher because everything is up double digits, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo” on Friday.
“First of all, the American people don’t believe that inflation is only 8% as you’ve said this morning on your show. Everything is up double-digit. Gas has doubled already. It’s almost $5 a gallon nationwide, as you’ve listed all of the different commodities out there, how high they are. The American people are feeling much higher, I expect 8.3 or higher as we see today,” Hern told the host.
“The president is doing all of the gimmicks to do things, releasing a million barrels a day, oil that we put in petroleum reserve at $50 a barrel and we’ll have to replace $150 a barrel. I mean, just economic disaster after disaster,” the GOP lawmaker continued.
“Now he’s talking about removing tariffs in China. He wants to go easing on China now to bury the idea that he caused anything to do with inflation,” the congressman added.
“This president and the administration have got to get spending under control. I just released a budget yesterday, the first budget, it’s been done this year,” he continued.
“We did the budget last year as well and the Republican Study Committee that Chairman Jim Banks leads, and, you know, it’s the only responsible budget that we’ve seen in the four years that I have been in Congress,” said Hern.
“President Biden released one in March, early April that never balances. It never balances. It adds some $20 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years,” Hern added.
He went on to say that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is correct that there is a supply-and-demand issue “but we gotta ask why it started, and her predecessor Lawrence Summers said that it was because of the $2 trillion spending that they initiated when they got in office last year, and she admitted finally, last month that she had gotten it wrong, and she’s talking about competition being eliminated.”
“Her tax policies that she’s doing right now [are] doing nothing but wanting our multi-national companies, our largest companies to go elsewhere to do business,” the Oklahoma Republican continued.
“She just stopped a 100-year credit for foreign tax for our multi-nationals to do business abroad, and now they are looking at places like China to go do business and, you know, this administration time and time again has said one thing and done another. Their video and their audio are not matching up,” he noted.
“She’s going after these oil and gas companies – she and the president – and then when asked in the ways and means hearing this week about it, she said, you know, it’s a global issue,” Hern said.
“Which is it? Is it a U.S. domestic issue or is it a global issue? They hope that nobody is listening, and they continue to do things they’re doing just as they’ve done since they’ve gotten into office,” Hern added.
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