Biden’s Inflation-Tackling Just ‘Theater,’ Says Top Republican on Ways and Means Committee

The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee criticized President Joe Biden’s efforts to tame soaring inflation, arguing that his proposals—like rolling back some Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods or a gas tax holiday—amount to a “political gimmick” and “theater.”

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the Republican Leader on the House Committee on Ways and Means, made the remarks in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on July 5, in which he said Biden’s policies have contributed to soaring inflation in a “big way.”

Inflation has been running at a 40-year high in the United States, with the most recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) data showing prices rising at 8.6 percent in annual terms.

Alternate measures of inflation, however, put this figure much higher. Economist John Williams, who calculates a version of the CPI using the same way the government used before 1980, puts the latest figure at 16.8 percent, a 75-year high.

“Our inflation overall is running about three points higher in America than it is in Europe and much of the rest of the world–that’s driven by Joe Biden’s policies in a big way,” Brady said in the interview.

Brady argued that the Biden administration has no effective plan to cool prices.

“The Biden Administration is trying to play a political game here that just isn’t working to tamp down this raging inflation,” he said.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) joins Members of Congress and farmers from across the country to rally for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on the National Mall in Washington on Sept. 12, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) ‘None of This Makes Sense’

A big factor squeezing American households’ budgets is the soaring price of gasoline, which is also a major contributor to the overall pace of inflation.

The price of gasoline is around double what