Manchin Sounds the Alarm for the Biden Admin on Growing Inflation

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) backed Republicans on Thursday in raising awareness on rising inflation, stating that now is not the time for Congress to approve sweeping spending plans.

The senator expressed his concern regarding new economic data that were released on Thursday, showing that inflation accelerated by 7.5% in January, effectively reaching a 40-year high.

“This inflation is real,” Manchin said at the Capitol on Thursday. “It’s harming people. It’s 7.5%. That’s a tax, and it continues to increase. It’s not decreasing. So the feds have to step up to the plate and do something. The administration has to. We all have to work together right now to get our financial house in order. If not, it’s going to be absolutely horrible what it’s going to do to the American economy.”

Manchin rejected his fellow Democrats’ assertion that approving President Joe Biden’s massive Build Back better legislation worth $2 trillion would improve inflation. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reiterated her claim this week that the said legislation is “a crucial tool in the fight against inflation,” basing this on the work of 17 Nobel Prize-winning economists.

“This is not a time to be throwing fuel on the fire,” Manchin stated, talking about spending more money. “We have inflation, and we have basically an economy that’s on fire … We’ve got to get our house in order.”

On Thursday, the senator, referring to the Fed, stated during a WV MetroNews radio interview that “They can’t keep pussyfooting around like they’ve been.”

In January, the consumer price index went up 7.5% compared to the figure a year ago, per a new report released by the Labor Department on Thursday. This marks the fastest inflation increase since February 1982, when it went up by 7.6%. The CPI, meanwhile, jumped by 0.6% in the one-month period from December 2021.

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