Rice on Inflation: Passing Spending Bill ‘Most Important Thing’ We Can Do in Very Near Term to Help People’s Finances

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” White House Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice stated that the most important thing “that we can do in the very near term that will have a real impact on the finances of Americans is to pass the Build Back Better legislation and enact it into law.”

Rice said, “I think you know that what we are experiencing with inflation, which is real, is, in fact, a global phenomenon. The United States is facing its challenges. Europe has higher inflation than it’s had in 13 years, Canada, higher than in 18 years. And yet, it is our economy that has come back most robustly among our competitors around the world, and the only one that really has largely gotten back to pre-pandemic levels. That said, there is a need to reduce costs and we are working, as you mentioned, on the supply chain, we’re working on reducing gasoline prices. But the most important thing, as we’ve been discussing, that we can do in the very near term that will have a real impact on the finances of Americans is to pass the Build Back Better legislation and enact it into law.”

She continued, “Because that’s where healthcare costs will be reduced, prescription drug costs, childcare costs-which can consume ridiculous shares of an average family’s income, education costs, housing costs, all of those are critical elements of this legislation. You bring those costs down and that, obviously, is beneficial to the bottom line of the American family. You provide a tax cut for middle and working-class Americans through the child tax credit and you ask the wealthiest corporations and families to pay their fair share and not to evade taxes, making sure that no family earning less than $400,000 a year sees one penny more in their taxes. So, that’s why the Build Back Better legislation is so impactful and so urgent.”

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