During an interview released on Monday’s edition of the “Fox News Rundown” podcast, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said that it is “undeniable” that stimulus checks sent out by former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden had an inflationary impact, but were nonetheless “the right thing to do” given the circumstances. He also argued that the “main” cause of inflation is the Federal Reserve getting the issue wrong.
Host Jessica Rosenthal asked, [relevant exchange begins around 8:50] “Do you then feel that stimulus checks, in light of COVID spending, the American Rescue Plan, did that drive some of this inflation then?”
Khanna answered, “It’s undeniable that the stimulus checks under both President Trump and Joe Biden — remember, President Trump did it in December of 2020, and then we did another one in March of 2021 — anyone would say, of course that had some inflationary impact. But it also helped save a lot of people from unemployment. It saved a lot of people from eviction when we were in the midst of the pandemic, and it was the right thing to do at that time. The challenge is that the Fed, at the same time, was buying back mortgage securities and had way too much quantitative easing. And so, I put the main burden [of] inflation on the Fed not having anticipated it soon enough.”
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