Harry Wilmerding
Republican leaders slammed President Joe Biden on Wednesday after a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release showed inflation surging to its highest level in almost 40 years.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a key inflation index, grew 0.5% in December to 7% on a year-over-year basis, according to the BLS report, the highest level since 1982. Leaders immediately criticized the president for failing economic policies and skyrocketing prices.
“President Biden’s failed economic policies are clobbering hard-working families and seniors,” Ranking Member of the House Committee on Economic Disparity Bryan Steil told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“While the White House touts ‘wage gains,’ workers are seeing their paychecks wiped out by higher prices and skyrocketing inflation,” Steil said, calling for an immediate change in economic policy.
Biden’s overspending during the pandemic has done nothing but promote the soaring cost of goods, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told the DCNF.
“Despite the glaring warnings signs, President Biden’s only strategy has been to spend more and do nothing to get ahead of these soaring costs,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Now, six months later, we know they were either misleading or completely incompetent in their assessment.”
“This upward trajectory speaks for itself, and it all happened under Biden’s watch,” McCarthy said.
Americans are starting to realize Biden’s failed economic policies have led to soaring costs across all categories of goods, Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told the DCNF.
“From the gas pump to the grocery store, inflation is hurting Louisiana families,” Kennedy told the DCNF. “President Biden’s unrepentant tax-and-spend agenda caused this 40-year price spike, and Americans know it.”
“With massive inflation and a serious supply chain crisis on our hands, Washington needs to stop considering tax hikes, job killing regulations, suffocating new mandates, and increased spending that our nation can’t afford,” Republican New York Rep. Lee Zeldin told the DCNF.
“This is our economy on printed money. Modern Monetary Theory always fails. Sound Money always works,” Ohio Republican Rep. Warren Davidson told the DCNF.
Overprinting and the surging costs of goods had a rippling effect on the economy, worsening the labor market and supply chain bottlenecks.
“Under Joe Biden everything costs more, store shelves are empty, and small businesses are struggling to hire workers and stay open,” Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. “Americans are paying the price for Biden’s failures, and Biden doesn’t care.”
Fixing the inflation problem will be key to recovering the struggling labor market, House Ways and Means Ranking Member Kevin Brady told the DCNF.
“As Chairman Powell said yesterday, inflation is a severe threat to getting workers off the sidelines and back into the workforce—yet the Biden Administration has ignored it, denied it, and is now passing the buck for their own incompetence,” Brady said in a statement.
The U.S. economy added 199,000 jobs in December, far below economist’s projections of 422,000 and marking one of the weakest reports since Biden took office. Unemployment dipped to 3.9% in December from November’s 4.1% figure.
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