Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
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WASHINGTON –U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Budget Committee and Senate Banking Committee, joined America’s Newsroom on Fox News to discuss the highest inflation numbers in over 40 years. He highlighted the deep impacts of the Biden Administrations’ detrimental economic policies felt by rural America. He also called out the Federal Reserve for their lagging response to inflation. Excerpts and full video are below.
On Biden’s Inflation in Rural America:
“Right now, I’m in here in Bismarck, [North Dakota] and the price of fuel is being recognized by the people blowing their driveways out on day two of a three-day [snow]storm. There is no question in rural America, you’re hit the hardest, particularly by fuel inflation because we drive further to get to places, deliveries come from a long ways away, the products we create and food we produce has to go further away — from the center of the North American continent to around the world. [Rural America] gets hit harder than most places. On the other hand, we are a commodity-based economy. When the price of groceries [goes up], it means the price of cattle and wheat is also up. When the price of fuel is up, the price of oil is up. So there are parts of our economy that benefit as well, but none of this is good for any of us and we feel it in North Dakota, as we do everywhere.”
On the Federal Reserve’s Slow Response to Inflation:
“Besides the Budget Committee, I’m also on the Banking Committee. I was pleading with the Federal Reserve over a year ago to start easing back a little bit on free money. Inflation is a simple issue – when demand outpaces supply, you’re going to have inflation. The Federal Reserve was very slow, when it was obvious there was inflation happening they called it transitory. Now they still hope for soft landings, and every now and then when you have a really bad cancer you need to cut it out. You cannot just simply hope it goes away over the course of time. On top of that, we have an Administration and a Democratic Party that just keeps pouring fuel on this. It’s like Joe Biden showed up at the West Wing one day and said, ‘Kamala [Harris] – the Oval Office is on fire! Go get some gasoline quickly and we’ll try to put it out.’ Everything they do is counter to solving the problem in front of them.”
On Needed Steps to Combat Biden’s Inflation:
“I don’t know how long [inflation will last] necessarily, Dana. But if we act faster and more boldly, it would not have to be all that long. I do think that expectations need to be managed properly. But you can’t continue to put the clamps on energy production in the United States when we were once energy dominant and energy independent. Now we are becoming energy dependent. When they [flooded] the demand-side with free money with the American Rescue Plan [and shut] down energy development in their own country… that’s exactly the opposite of what you need to do. You need to boost the supply-side of the economy, not boost the demand-side and shrink the supply-side of the economy. That’s what we see over and over. How about the latest desire to forgive every student’s debt forever? It’s just adding more fuel on this fire of inflation… [Stop] blaming the oil companies, blaming [Vladimir] Putin, [and] blaming the previous president or whatever, we need to admit that we have a challenge and take it on.”