VP Harris: Bringing Down Inflation ‘One of the Highest Priorities’; Says Build Back Better Will Bring Prices Down

During a Thursday interview on ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Vice President Kamala Harris discussed the rise of inflation heading into the holiday season.

Harris argued inflation was a result of the coronavirus pandemic and said bringing down was “one of the highest priorities” for her and President Joe Biden.

“First of all, it’s real, and it’s rough,” Harris outlined. “The cost of groceries has gone up. The cost of gas has gone up. And this is all happening in the context of two years of a pandemic. It’s one of the highest priorities, actually, for the president and for me. And so, we’re dealing with this issue in a number of ways. Short term, one of the issues is the supply chain. We’re seeing a bottleneck, and we need to relieve that bottleneck, so we brought together everyone from the Teamsters to Target to say, hey, let’s bring everyone together from the truckers to the folks who are moving product and let’s open up some of our major ports for work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s happening, and we’re seeing great results.”

She continued, “Long term, we need to bring down the cost of living, and that’s a long-standing issue. And so, we passed this week the infrastructure bill, a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and that’s going to be about repairing roads and bridges and bringing high-speed internet to all families, but also, we need to deal with the cost of child care, the cost of prescription drugs, the cost of housing. And that’s what we intend to do when we get the Build Back Better agenda passed.”

Harris pushed back against the notion that Build Back Better would only cause more inflation, saying instead it would “bring the cost down.”

“Here’s the thing: Talk to 17 Nobel laureates who are economists who actually have studied the issue and have indicated that we’re not looking at a contribution to inflation, but actually we’re going to get prices down,” she advised. “In fact, Moody’s and a number of others have said, listen, when you look at the numbers, the whole point about inflation and why it hurts us is because prices go up. With the Build Back Better agenda, it’s going to bring the cost down.”

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