He said the extra spending would not add to inflation because it would be “fully paid for” through tax hikes on corporations and high-income households. The administration is “confident that this bill is going to come up in the House this week, that we’ll get a vote, it will pass and it will move on to the Senate,” Deese said on ABC’s “This Week.”
He declined to say whether Biden would tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help lower gasoline prices.
“The president has made clear that all options are on the table,” Deese said on CNN. “We’re monitoring the situation very carefully.”
Biden has hinted in recent days that he would act to tame gasoline prices, which are running at the highest level in seven years and have contributed significantly to rising consumer prices.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said inflation momentum has built up to a point “that it’s going to take some significant policy adjustment or some unfortunate accident that slows the economy before inflation gets back to the 2% range.”
“I think for many people, inflation is a test of whether the country’s under control,” Summers, a paid contributor to Bloomberg, said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.