WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today joined Liz MacDonald on The Evening Edit to discuss the Democrats’ proposed $3.5 trillion spending spree and his questioning of Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell at today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing.
*Click the photo above or here to watch*
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending spree: “I certainly heard the quote that you played from Joe Manchin. I hope that his colleagues will listen to it, but what I’ve seen is a party that’s been captured by the progressive far left. And they’re saying that a prerequisite to any sort of infrastructure package is going to be this $3.5 trillion spending spree. That will be more of the Green New Deal, more Obamacare, more job killing taxes, death taxes. It’s going to push more jobs overseas. This is going to be devastating to the American economy at a time when we certainly don’t need to see more stimulus spending as inflation is beginning to run rampant in America.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ misuse of Senate procedure: “It’s a procedural process that they’ve used before. This is what they did in March with their $1.9 trillion so-called COVID relief package, which was anything but that. Again it’s has had massive inflationary impact, but they were able to do it by bringing Kamala Harris, the Vice President, to cast that 51st vote. That seems to be what Chuck Schumer’s plan is. As you said, it’s bare-knuckle politics. Our goal, Republicans’ goal, is to stand firm ourselves, and also hope that we’ll see more level-headed voices, like the one you just heard from Joe Manchin prevail. We just need one Democrat to side with us.”
Hagerty on rising inflation: “I serve on the Banking Committee. We had Chairman Powell today with us, both Democrats and Republicans. Most of my Democrat colleagues tried to avoid the whole conversation about inflation, but the Republicans were very focused on this with Chairman Powell. If you look at what happened, Liz, just month over month, from May to June, if you annualize the price increases that happen there, that’s a 12 percent inflation rate. That’s occurring right now, far beyond the 2% target the Chairman Powell has been talking about and it’s being felt every day, certainly by citizens in Tennessee, in my home state. If you look at what the Biden Administration policies are doing, this isn’t temporary. A lot of the talk about this as though it’s a transitory impact. But if you think about the Keystone XL pipeline getting canceled, no drilling on federal lands, this increases the cost of energy throughout the country. And what it does is it increases the cost of every good that has to be transported across America. Americans are feeling this, whether it’s in home prices, whether it’s in the price of used cars, and certainly every good and service that they have to purchase. This inflation is a real concern and we need to address it now and certainly not add more stimulus spending that’s going to again fuel this inflation even further.”