House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing her best to try and deflect the blame for high inflation and gas prices from President Biden to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pelosi made the bold claims that global inflation “starts with Putin” and increasing U.S. government spending on domestic social programs will help decrease the national debt and bring down inflation at home.
Fox News reports:
During the 2022 House Democratic Issues Conference, Pelosi referred to record gas prices in the U.S. as “Putin’s tax” and “Putin’s gas hike.” She said passing components of President Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar social policy bill, called the Build Back Better Act, which is all but dead due to moderates’ opposition, would make new investments in education and workforce development in a way that would eventually bring prices down.
Gas prices across the United States had been rising sharply long before Putin launched Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, since Biden’s first days in office when he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and “paused” oil and gas leases on federal lands via executive order. The Biden administration released 50 million barrels of oil from the National Strategic Reserve on November 23, 2021, in an attempt to alleviate growing pain at the pump. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Biden administration released another 30 million barrels from the reserve in early March 2022.
“One other point that we’ll make about it is that what we are doing in our legislation, what we would do in the Build Back Better – seventeen Nobel laureates in economics said that legislation does not increase inflation. It is non-inflationary because of the way it is written,” Pelosi said.
“So when we’re having this discussion, it’s important to dispel some of those who say, well it’s the government spending – no, it isn’t,” she continued. “The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt. It is not inflationary.”
Once again Pelosi tried to single out Putin as the culprit for inflation rates and higher gas prices in the U.S.
“We’re paying very close attention to it, but this starts with Putin because the global inflation for reasons beyond the gas price,” she continued.
