Sen. Joe Manchin said Tuesday government leadersneed to stop “searching for where to lay the blame” as inflation reaches record highs, and instead cut spending and expand U.S. energy.
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The scathing statement from Manchin, D-W.Va., comes after he was the loudest intra-party critic of the Biden administration’s handling of the problem for months. But the president and the Federal Reserve haven’t done enough to deal with inflation, Manchin said, as it reached a new 40-year high Tuesday with the consumer price index up 8.5% from March 2021 to last month.
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The White House initially dismissed inflation last year as “transitory” before it continued to surge into late 2021 and 2022. It also said inflation was a sign of a good economy at times. White House chief of staff Ron Klain retweeted a post that dismissed inflation as a “high class problem,” although the White House eventually began acknowledging its effect on average Americans.