Inflation is rising at a rate unseen in nearly 13 years, and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is placing the blame squarely at the feet of President Joe Biden.
The Labor Department announced Tuesday that the consumer-price index increased 5.4% in June. This is the highest 12-month rate since August 2008. The consumer-price index measures what consumers pay for goods and services, including clothes, groceries, dining out, recreational activities and vehicles.
On Wednesday, Tuberville outlined that the rise in inflation is among the most pressing concerns he has heard from people throughout the Yellowhammer State.
“Alabamians are working just as hard, but their paychecks are not going as far,” he explained. “This is because of rising inflation driven by President Biden’s tax and spend policies and un-targeted government stimulus spending. The trillions of dollars printed in recent months are ballooning the costs of just about everything we buy. Prices are going up on everyday items like fruits, vegetables, chicken, eggs, meat. The chances are good your recent 4th of July celebration cost more than it did last year.”
The Biden administration has floated numerous tax increase proposals in the initial months of the president’s first term.
In addition to a well-publicized proposal to increase the corporate tax rate, Biden is pursuing increases aimed at smaller businesses. Proposals include more than doubling the capital gains tax, taxing equipment trade-ins and taxing like-kind property exchanges.
Biden has empowered Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to rally support for a global corporate tax rate which would tie U.S. corporate taxes to those of foreign governments.
None of these are attractive options to Tuberville.
“One of the largest burdens of these tax hikes will fall on the workers in the form of fewer jobs and lower wages,” he stated.
He sees Biden’s proposals as driving up inflation even further if enacted.
“As taxes increase, the cost of doing business increases,” said Tuberville. “Then jobs are cut to offset these rising costs, and when jobs are cut, the prices of goods and services rise. Biden economics is simply not sustainable. Clearly, things are not adding up. I hope for the sake of our economy and the hard-working Alabamians, who are getting up to go to work and earn a living every day, that the White House takes notice.”
Nothing in the continued negotiations on a potential infrastructure bill has changed his view on acceptable methods of funding the projects.
“You can bet I will be watching like a hawk to make sure there will be zero – and I mean zero – tax increases to pay for this infrastructure bill,” Tuberville emphasized. “There is never a good time to raise taxes, but it makes no sense to do this and raise taxes.”
As for the nation’s inflation dilemma, the president’s approach to energy policy is part of the problem, according to Tuberville.
Natural gas prices have more than doubled in the last year, and crude oil has seen a more than $32 per barrel increase in the last 12 months.
Tuberville blames the rising cost of energy on Biden’s decision to reduce U.S. oil and gas production. At the same time, a White House spokesman acknowledged last week that the administration was urging OPEC to increase production moving forward.
Tuberville asserted that this has caused an unhealthy reliance on foreign powers and harmed the American economy.
“We are our own enemy when it comes to energy right now with the Biden Administration,” he concluded. “Right now we are in a rock and a hard place when it comes to doing away with fossil fuels, doing away with our energy, buying it from other people. It’s running the price up.”
Tim Howe is an owner of Yellowhammer Multimedia
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