WASHINGTON, D.C.(WJHL) — Record high inflation in America won’t be going away anytime soon, according to a U.S. Senator from Tennessee.
“What’s happening around the world suggests to me that this inflation is going to be here for some time,” said U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee).
In an interview with News Channel 11 on Wednesday, Hagerty described inflation as out of control and said recent efforts by the Federal Reserve to halt inflation by raising interest rates could help but should have been taken last year.
“Inflation is the broadest tax that can be imposed on the American public, and what we’re seeing is runaway inflation,” Hagerty said.
He said it began with the Democratic-backed $1.9 trillion dollar Covid-19 relief package passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in March 2021.
“What we’ve seen is too much liquidity in the marketplace, too many dollars chasing too few goods,” Hagerty said from his Senate office in the Washington D.C. “And we’ve seen rampant inflation underway as a result of that and energy policies that have driven gas prices through the roof here in the United States.”
Hagerty blamed the President’s decision to abandon the Keystone Pipeline project, the decision to halt new oil and gas leases and permits, and the appointment of federal officials who he said are openly adversarial to the oil and gas industry.
“Every message that this administration is sending is to not invest in America’s energy independence,” Hagerty said.
“The best source of relief would be to go to the root cause of the problem. The root cause of the problem is a shortage of supply. That shortage of supply is the direct result of the Biden administration’s war on the domestic oil and gas industry here in America. That war began the day Joe Biden took office,” Hagerty said.
