Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Steve Rattner, who served as counselor to the Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, weighed in on the record-high inflation under President Joe Biden.
Host Joe Scarborough asked Rattner if people blaming Biden for the high prices was “utter nonsense.”
Rattner said there were “several culprits” but pointed to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which he said led to inflation.
“There are several culprits,” Rattner explained. “There is Biden and what he’s done, and it’s not irrelevant, but it’s not –”
“And what is that?” Scarborough interrupted.
Rattner replied, “Well, that is all the spending, basically.”
“Yeah,” Scarborough said. “The relief bill.”
“The American Rescue Plan,” Rattner stated. “The $1,400 tax, the $2 trillion that you and I have talked about a lot that’s on the sidelines, half of that’s government money that we gave people to spend, and now they’re trying to spend it, so you get inflation.”
“The second issue which we’ll talk about is the Fed, which also completely blew it –completely blew it in a way I haven’t seen in 40 years from the Fed. I love the Fed, but there’s nothing good to say about it,” he continued. “And it is absolutely true that there are unforced problems out there. Putin, I wouldn’t call this Putin’s inflation, but there’s no question that Ukraine and Russia have had a major impact on the inflation.”
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