(CNSNews.com) – President Biden said Wednesday that he hopes that legislation that Congress has already passed, namely the Inflation Reduction Act, will provide a “soft landing” when it comes to inflation by gradually bringing down prices and staving off a recession, and he said “it’s just taking effect.”
“So there’s a lot of things we can do to affect the things that people need on a monthly basis to reduce their inflation, their cost of living, and so — but I am optimistic, because we continue to grow and at a rational pace, we’re not anywhere near a recession right now, in terms of the growth, but I think we can have what most economists call a ‘soft landing,’” he said.
“I’m convinced that we’re going to be able to gradually bring down prices so that they, in fact, end up with us not having to move into a recession to be able to get control of inflation,” the president said.
During the president’s first press conference since the midterm election, TheGrio’s White House Correspondent April Ryan asked Wednesday, “The issue is inflation. TheGrio and KFF conducted a study of Black voters that said inflation was the number one issue, and we saw it in this midterm election. What can you promise concretely in these next two years that will help turn the pocketbook for the better in the midst of staving off a recession?”
BIDEN: Well, a number of things. First of all, un- — black unemployment is almost cut in half under my administration just since I began. More black businesses have opened up — small businesses — than ever before.
We’re now in a situation where we’re providing, through the Small Business Administration, down payments for people buying homes, because most people accumulate wealth in the value of their home, most middle-class families like mine. My dad bought a home, didn’t have — just scraped together to get a home. By the time he was able to retire, he was — he had built up equity in a home. That’s how most people do that, and so — but what I can’t do is I can’t guarantee that we’re going to be able to get rid of inflation, but I do think we can.
We brought — we’ve already brought down the price of gasoline about $1.20 a gallon across the board. And I think that the — the — the — the oil companies are really doing the nation a real disservice. They’ve made — six of them made over $100 billion in the last quarter in profit - $100 billion.
In the past, if they had done the two things that they had done before — one, invest in more refineries and producing more product and/or passing on the rebates to the gas stations that — you know, they sell the oil at a cheaper rate than they have to — than they are selling it now, not taking advantage, and that lowers the price of the total gallon of gas because that gets passed on.
So there’s a whole lot of things that we can do that are — that are difficult to do, but we’re going to continue to push to do them, and the other thing is that one of the things that makes a gigantic difference is what are the costs that exist in the average family and the average Black community. One, prescription drug costs. Well, we’re driving those down precipitously, beginning next year.
And, you know, I’ll bet you know a lot of people in the African American and — and Caucasian community that — that need to take insulin for diabetes. Well, we’re going to reduce that cost. They’re not going to pay more than $35 for the insulin instead of four- — average of $400, and I can go down the list of the things that — my dad used to say it a different way.
At the end of the month, the things you have to pay for, from your mortgage to food on the table to gasoline in the automobile, do you have enough money to do it? And when it’s done, do you have anything left over? And medical bills are a big piece of that, particularly in the African American community and the poor — and poorer communities.
They need help, and so we’re driving down all of those costs, and we’ve already passed the legislation to do that; it’s just taking effect.
So there’s a lot of things we can do to affect the things that people need on a monthly basis to reduce their inflation, their cost of living, and so — but I am optimistic, because we continue to grow and at a rational pace, we’re not anywhere near a recession right now, in terms of the growth, but I think we can have what most economists call a “soft landing.”
I’m convinced that we’re going to be able to gradually bring down prices so that they, in fact, end up with us not having to move into a recession to be able to get control of inflation.