WASHINGTON – Democrats this week started talking more aggressively about their own anti-inflation agenda after months of Republicans blaming them for higher prices in the first place.
The shift in rhetoric is an acknowledgment that Democrats’ big economic proposal, the Build Back Better Act, may be stalled for good and that the party needs to coalesce around a better message if it has any hope of defending its narrow congressional majorities in November.
“Over the next month and beyond, members from our side will continue offering a number of solutions—solutions—that will lower costs and leave more money in people’s pockets,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday.
When prices started rising last year, most economists blamed the pandemic, saying supply chain issues constrained supply and that prices would relax soon enough. But inflation has persisted, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting last week that prices had risen 7.5% since last January — the highest inflation since 1982.
Schumer identified a number of ideas to address higher prices, including working to lower the cost of child care, prescription drugs, and semiconductors ― things Democrats have already talked about for months. One new idea on the table is a suspending the 18-cent federal gas tax for the remainder of the year. The proposal has been criticized as a “gimmick” by senators on both sides of the aisle, however.
“Democrats are the ones laser-focused on showing where we stand and offer solutions that aim squarely at the problem,” Schumer added on Wednesday. “Republicans seem to have no solutions, just rhetoric.”
Republicans on Wednesday had a lot of rhetoric, holding another in a series of press conferences lamenting the burden of inflation, especially on people with fixed incomes, such as Social Security recipients whose monthly budgets remain the same all year even as their expenses rise.
“I’m glad that the Democrats are finally coming to the conclusion that this is an issue that needs to be addressed,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said. “They missed the boat a long time ago.”
Thune and his colleagues blame the American Rescue Plan for the inflation surge, saying the $1.9 trillion bill that boosted unemployment benefits and provided $1,400 checks to most Americans wound up injecting way too much money into the economy. There’s a debate among economists over how much the extra money may have contributed to inflation.
But the GOP’s full-court press over inflation hit a speedbump this week in the Senate Banking Committee after every Republican senator on the panel boycotted a vote on President Joe Biden’s five nominees to the Federal Reserve, whose mission is to control inflation.
Republicans said they only opposed one of Biden’s nominees, Sarah Bloom Raskin, over her record and her advocacy for the Fed to be more proactive in addressing the financial risks posed by climate change, as well as an alleged conflict of interest. Still, by failing to show up for the vote and provide a quorum, they blocked all five nominees from moving forward and filling out the Fed board, which is supposed to have seven members.
The boycott gave Democrats an opening to go on offense after months of attacks by Republicans and growing concerns among the public about the threat of inflation and rising prices.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the chairman of the Senate banking committee, accused Republicans of being “AWOL in the fight against inflation” because they refused to show up to the vote.
“It affects inflation because we’ve not had a full Fed in place for nine years,” Brown told HuffPost. “The Fed only has four members now, and two of them are not in jobs that they’ve been nominated for … and they have this really important meeting in March on inflation and they should have all seven members there ready to go.”
But Republicans rejected the notion that the Fed couldn’t handle monetary policy without all its members confirmed, pointing out that the Fed has already signaled interest rate hikes are coming this year.
“They’ve already shown that they have the capacity to deal with these issues and we’ve had really serious issues with some of the nominees that have been put forward,” banking committee member Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) told HuffPost.
“I’d rather have the seat empty than have somebody with a very serious ethical cloud over their head,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who sits on the banking committee, said of Raskin’s nomination. “Sometimes you have to make a decision to protect from a bad certainty.”
The Biden administration, for its part, has sought to look busy on price and supply chain problems, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg touting new programs to lure workers to the trucking industry and the president himself talking up ideas to promote competition.
“We have been using every tool at our disposal, and while today is a reminder that Americans’ budgets are being stretched in ways that create real stress at the kitchen table, there are also signs that we will make it through this challenge,” Biden said last week after the government reported an inflation increase.
For the most part, Democrats have touted the good things about the economy, including low unemployment and rising wages. But consumer sentiment has crashed, and voters have told pollsters they have more confidence in Republicans than Democrats on economic issues.