Manchin Blames White House, Fed for Slow Response to Inflation
Manchin Blames White House, Fed for Slow Response to Inflation
(Bloomberg) -- West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, whose opposition derailed President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, blamed the White House and the Federal Reserve for failing to head off inflation, which hit a 40-year high.
“The Federal Reserve and the administration failed to act fast enough, and today’s data is a snapshot in time of the consequences being felt across the country,” Manchin said Tuesday in a statement. “Instead of acting boldly, our elected leaders and the Federal Reserve continue to respond with half-measures and rhetorical failures searching for where to lay the blame.”
Labor Department data released Tuesday showed the consumer price index increased 8.5% in March from a year earlier.
Manchin has been raising warnings about rising prices for much of the past year, writing to the Federal Reserve last August, expressing his concerns that its massive bond-buying program, in addition to fiscal stimulus from Congress, could overheat the economy and spark inflation. He also blocked Biden’s massive tax and spending package in the Senate, a plan the administration argues would have helped consumers by cutting costs for health care and childcare.
“We cannot spend our way to a balanced, healthy economy and continue adding to our $30 trillion national debt,” said Manchin, a pivotal vote in the 50-50 Senate. He called on the Fed to get more aggressive in its response and for the White House, Democrats and Republicans to back “an all-of-the-above energy policy because that is the only way to bring down the high price of gas and energy while attacking climate change.”
Manchin chairs the Energy Committee and is one of the few Democratic senators who will so openly criticize the White House as he did Tuesday. He has urged Biden to reverse his administration’s restrictions on oil and gas so the United States can dramatically increase its own production and export more to Europe to replace Russian exports. Gasoline prices drove half of the monthly CPI increase, surging 48%.
He has also floated the possibility this year of a limited Democratic-only package including an energy component and deficit reduction paid for by taxes on the wealthy and corporations and lower prescription drug prices, but has said negotiations have yet to begin on such a package.
On Tuesday, however, he leaned in on the idea of a bipartisan package, saying inflation is a problem “one political party alone cannot fix.”
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