President Biden touted his economic policies over those of former President Trump during his press conference Thursday night, but one of Trump’s economic advisers is fact-checking some of the presumptive Democratic nominee’s claims.
Stephen Moore, an economist at The Heritage Foundation and a Trump economic adviser, offered his responses to Biden’s remarks in an interview with FOX Business.
“Just this morning, we had a great economic report showing inflation is down,” Biden said Thursday, the same day the Labor Department reported the consumer price index rose 3% year over year in June. “Overall, prices fell last month. Core inflation is the lowest it’s been in three years. Prices are falling for cars, appliances and airfare — airfares. Grocery prices have fallen since the start of the year.”
Moore acknowledged the inflation rate is falling, calling the development an improvement, but said “the idea that prices are falling is not something that anybody who goes to the grocery store, or anyone who goes to the gas pump or anyone who has to pay an insurance bill or rent would agree with.”
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While the inflation rate is falling, prices overall are still rising, he noted.
“Under Biden’s presidency, prices across the board are 20% higher than they were when he came into office,” Moore said. “And that’s why voters still cite inflation as one of their biggest problems and worries.”
The economist said consumers are still seeing dramatic price increases even at the 3% rate over the past 12 months.
“That’s worse than any year that Trump was in office,” Moore noted.
In his speech before taking questions Thursday, Biden said many economists thought the initiatives he put forward would “cause inflation,” that “things are going to skyrocket” and “the debt is going to go up” because of them.
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Under the Biden administration, the inflation rate ballooned from 1.4% to 9.1% in June 2022. Although rising prices have now eased to 3% year over year as of June of this year, inflation remains well above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.
“What are you hearing now from mainstream economists?” Biden said. “Sixteen economic Nobel laureates said I’ve done a hell of a job, that under my plans so far and what’s going to happen in the future — if I’m re-elected, that things are going to get much better. Our economy is growing.”
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Last month, a group of 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists issued a letter warning voters that inflation would rise if Trump wins the 2024 election, but many of them made the same warnings in 2016 and claimed Biden’s policies would not cause inflation.
Moore said the fact Biden brought up the 16 Nobel laureates “is almost comical.”
“If these Nobel Prize economists were stand-up guys, they would send back their Nobel Prizes and say, ‘We have no idea what we’re talking about,’ because they were completely wrong,” Moore said.
He said the average inflation rate during the Trump administration was 2%, while the average rate under Biden so far is at 6%.
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