President Joe Biden on Tuesday said his administration is taking action to lower energy costs and bring down inflation rates that are the highest in decades by clearing supply chain bottlenecks and reigning in corporate greed, but warned against handing the reins of power to a Republican Party more interested in protecting corporate profits than American families.
Mr Biden opened his remarks by laying out what he described as the two major causes of the inflation that has reached levels not seen since the early 1980s: The Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. He added that inflation was a “global challenge” but tackling it was now his “top domestic priority”.
He said the war launched by Russian president Vladimir Putin has caused food and fuel prices to spike, citing Russia and Ukraine’s status as major wheat and corn producers, and touted his administration’s release of record amounts from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve and authorisation of expanded use of ethanol-based fuels as actions that have put the US “in a stronger position” to tackle inflation than “than just about any other country in the world,” as well as his administration’s work to unclog bottled-up supply chains by putting more truckers on the road and stepping up the pace of operations at US ports.
Mr Biden also hit out at Republicans for opposing plans to increase investment in clean energy that are supported by “nearly a dozen” chief executives at US energy producers, and said they would give oil companies “a free pass,” by letting them “continue to sit on this land without producing while shipping record profits back to their investors” in contrast to his administration’s proposal to fine companies that don’t use drilling leases granted to them on federal lands.
“They have no plan to bring down energy prices today. No plan to get us to a cleaner energy independent future tomorrow, so in the future, American families are no longer subject to the winds and of dictators halfway around the world,” he said.
But the president also warned of areas where the GOP does have plans, citing proposals put forth by Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign committee.
“What's the congressional Republican plan? They don't want to solve inflation by lowering your costs. They want to solve it by raising your taxes and lowering your income,” he said.
“I happen to think it's a good thing when American families have a little more money in their pockets at the end of the month. But Republicans in Congress don't seem to think so. Their plan is actually gonna make working families poorer,” he continued, adding that the GOP had “made their intentions perfectly clear” in Mr Scott’s “Rescue America” agenda.
Noting that he has proposed a minimum tax for billionaires while the GOP wants to raise taxes “on 75 million American families, over 95 per cent of who make less than $100,000 year total income” by roughly $1,500 per family, Mr Biden said Republicans “have got it backwards”.
Mr Biden also noted that Republican plans would sunset legislation — including social programs such as Social Security and Medicare — every five years, requiring Congress to vote to renew them.
“If we're going to have to vote on whether you will have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and what amounts you'll have in each of those programs, what they're likely to do use them as hostages every five years to get their way on other things,” he said.
“Think about it — if it's not a tax cut for billionaires or Social Security gets it, stop investing in clean energy or you're gonna kiss your Medicare goodbye,” he said, calling the GOP proposal “outrageous”.
Continuing, Mr Biden contrasted his administration’s plan to reduce the federal budget deficit with policies implemented under former president Donald Trump, noting his administration is set to cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion this year, while Mr Trump’s administration “exploded” it each year he was in office.
He said deficit reduction “matters to families” because it’s “one of the main ways” to reduce “inflationary pressures”.
“Americans have a choice right now, between two paths reflecting two very different sets of values. My plan attacks inflation and grows the economy by lowering costs for working families, gives … workers well deserved raises, reducing the deficit by historic levels and making big corporations and very wealthiest Americans pay their fair share,” he said, contrasting it with the “ultra Maga” plan to “raise taxes on working families, lower the income of American workers, threaten sacred programs Americans count on like Social Security, Medicare, [and]. Medicaid and give break after break to big corporations and billionaires just like they did the last time they were in power’.
He said “Maga Republicans” are counting on Americans to be frustrated at “the pace of progress” under his administration, and have done “everything they can” to slow progress so Americans will vote to give them power to “enact their extreme agenda” in November’s midterm elections.
“Look at their agenda,” he said. “Let's build on the extraordinary process and progress we've made instead of tearing it down — let's focus on what matters”.
