During a recent speech, President Joe Biden indicated that his controversial Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was a misnomer and that the legislation was about advancing climate change. During the off-script comments, the president seemingly admitted the purpose of the bill, passed in 2022, was not to tackle inflation, perhaps the most significant concern among Americans at the time.
“That through my investments, the most significant climate change law ever. And by the way, it is a $369 billion dollar bill. It’s called uh, we should have named it what it was. But anyway,” Biden said before highlighting a provision of a $7.3 billion investment the legislation allowed the Department of Agriculture to make.
The Inflation Reduction Act faced substantial criticism as some pointed out that it was counter-intuitive to introduce a massive, multi-billion dollar fiscal stimulus to an economy already facing historically high inflation. In June 2022, just before the IRA was passed in August, the United States had hit a near 40-year-high of 9.1%.
Biden’s apparent admission that the purpose of the IRA was really about investing in climate change initiatives is sure to spark controversy. Given that the legislation was promoted to mitigate inflation and reduce prices across the economy while Americans were struggling to make ends meet, this may lead to a substantial backlash against the Biden-Harris administration.
Furthermore, as Kamala Harris has stepped up to lead the Democratic ticket amid Biden’s withdrawal from the race in July, the vice president’s economic agenda has been heavily criticized. Harris has touted policies such as imposing price controls on groceries and instituting a tax on unrealized gains.
Former President Trump recently roasted Kamala Harris’ price control plans for groceries, labeling the stance as “full-communist.” At a recent rally, he said, “Kamala went full-communist. She went full-communist. She wants to destroy our country. After causing catastrophic inflation, comrade Kamala announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls. You saw that, never worked before. Never ever worked. This is the Maduro plan, Venezuela, Maduro plan of the old Soviet Union. They tried it. How did the Soviet Union work out? It became Russia.”
Trump added, “It will cause rationing, hunger, and skyrocketing prices, just like their Inflation Reduction Act caused one of the great scams of all time,” he explained. “They got it approved with a beautiful name, Inflation Reduction, because inflation under their system has been so bad, it’s gone up much more than 50%, you know they say 30%, 40%, 50% … people are being devastated. They’re being devastated, but it’s gone way up, way up.”
Watch Biden’s comments on the true nature of the Inflation Reduction Act below:
In a separate statement, Trump continued blasting the “communist price controls,” noting that central planning has always failed throughout history. “Now Kamala is reportedly proposing communist price controls, she wants price controls,” the former president said. “And if they worked, I’d go along with it, too, but they don’t work. They exactly have the exact opposite impact and effect and it leads to food shortages, rationing, hunger, dramatically more inflation.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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