When it was announced on the 14th that inflation had slowed in January, President Joe Biden criticized the Republican Party while highlighting the achievements of economic policy again.
In a statement that day, President Biden said, “Today’s data confirms that annual inflation has fallen for 7 months in a row,” in relation to the Ministry of Labor’s announcement that the consumer price index (CPI) in January rose 6.4% from the same month last year.”
He continued, mentioning the decline in gasoline prices from the peak and the lowest unemployment rate since 1969, emphasizing that “there is more work to be done to transition to steady and stable growth.”
He highlighted the importance of enforcing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), citing lowering the cost of living, rebuilding supply chains, and investing in the US as priorities.
“The Republicans have proposed repealing the IRA, which would increase the deficit, cost Big Pharma billions of dollars and exacerbate inflation,” he said.
Regarding the issue of raising the federal government debt ceiling, “some Republican lawmakers are threatening default on the credit and trust of the United States,” he criticized.
President Biden said, “Today’s statistics emphasize that we are making historic progress, that we are on the right track, and that we must finish the job now.”
President Biden’s remarks seem to be a justification for his re-election challenge based on his economic performance over the past two years.
In particular, the statement of ‘finish the job’, which was used several times in the State of the Union speech on the 7th, is in fact recognized as a slogan for President Biden’s re-election challenge in the 2024 presidential election.
The US CPI (6.4%) for January recorded the smallest increase in 15 months since October 2021.
However, it is evaluated that the slowdown is slowing down by only 0.1 percentage point from last December (6.5%).
In fact, the Republican Party focused on the weakening of the inflation slowdown and criticized it by calling it ‘Bidenflation’ again.
Representative Jody Arrington (Republican, Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee, criticized that “the Biden economy is making it more difficult for the families of workers who are working hard to pay utility bills.”
At the same time, he said that the reason for the inflation is “because President Biden is changing his spending habits and refusing to negotiate a responsible debt ceiling with the Republican Party.”
Representative Jason Smith (Republican-Missouri), who is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also called for government spending cuts, saying, “It is an opportunity to work with the Republican Party to find a commonsense solution to eradicate wasteful spending that fuels inflation.”