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I hope you saw my latest weekly column.



ROGER WICKER: Red Hot Inflation Hits Working Americans, Retirees Hardest
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Last year, as President Biden signed his massive $1.9 trillion “stimulus”
bill, he defended it as giving working Americans “a fighting chance.” More than
a year later, we are still waiting on that chance at economic recovery.
Instead, the President’s spending has given us the worst inflation in 40 years,
which is eating up paychecks, savings, and family budgets. Living standards are
falling, especially for retirees and those on fixed incomes. Gas prices are
through the roof and still rising. And millions of Americans have been forced
to take a second job or work extra hours to make ends meet. As former Obama
Treasury Secretary Steve Rattner recently said, “We’re all paying the price for
overstimulating this economy.”

The President has blamed everyone but himself for this crisis he created. At
first, he denied that inflation was occurring. He then dismissed it as
“transitory.” In December, after finally admitting inflation is real, he said
we had reached “the peak of this crisis.” Yet prices still did not let up. When
Russia invaded Ukraine, the President quickly tried to shift blame for all our
economic pain onto Vladimir Putin, even though inflation long predated the war
in Ukraine. Today, Mr. Biden still cannot bring himself to admit his own
spending and energy policies are the problem. He insists that his agenda has
left “no one behind” and is “changing people’s lives.” His willful blindness is
costing us all.

Curbing Inflation Will Be Painful

Last month’s inflation reading of 8.6 percent sent shockwaves through our
economy. The stock market lost over 800 points in a day, causing more
uncertainty for 401ks and savings. In response to this news, the Federal
Reserve announced it will raise interest rates by 0.75 percent – the largest
increase since 1994. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell also signaled an additional
0.75 percent jump could be in store next month. This would undoubtedly cause
more economic stress in the near term. Although raising interest rates has
always been a last resort, President Biden may have left the Fed with no good
options after flooding our economy with reckless spending.

Our nation faced a similar inflation crisis in the late 1970s. In the last two
years of the Carter presidency, prices were rising by double digits across our
economy, with gas prices up 35 percent each year. Some Americans feared the
dollar would get so weak they would have to bring bags full of cash to go
grocery shopping. Thankfully, we did not reach that point. Inflation was
stopped but at a heavy cost. In 1980, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker
took the extraordinary step of raising interest rates to 20 percent. This
caused a painful economic downturn and hurt job growth, but it ultimately
brought inflation down. It was not until 1983, under the Reagan tax cuts, that
our economy began a full recovery.

Biden Should Focus on Helpful Solutions

President Biden should take stock of the damage his policies have caused. If
he is serious about giving Americans a “fighting chance,” he needs to work with
Republicans to unleash American energy production, which would lower gas
prices. He should also lift regulatory burdens on job creators and help
Republicans preserve the 2017 tax cuts, which actually increased revenue and
which have kept our nation competitive globally. He needs to learn what we know
well in Mississippi: that big government is the problem, not the solution.



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Senator Roger Wicker






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