The nation's inflation will continue to grow while the government is pumping trillions of dollars into its economy, Sen. Bill Hagerty said Sunday, while rejecting the Biden administration's claims that the circumstances are merely "transitory."
"The effect was pretty immediate when the $1.9 trillion package came through in March," the Tennessee Republican said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo." "What we have seen is month over month is an increase in inflation here in America. It’s the most pernicious tax of all. They try to argue it’s transitory, but it’s not transitory.”
Hagerty added that the White House is pressuring Senate Democrats to get the bill passed, as Republicans are not involved in the negotiations.
"This is all a circular firing squad that's happening on the Democrat side," said Hagerty. "If it is true what [President] Joe Biden says, that this costs nothing, then why is it so hard to negotiate?"
The bill, once it passes in any form, will mean a "massive increase in taxes on the American economy," and that will come as the nation is already being hit hard by inflation, he said.
"Real wages are down 3% to 4% just since Joe Biden took office," said Hagerty. "That's a tax on every American. So this bait-and-switch activity that Biden's been involved in since the very day he took office is taking hold, and the American public is tired of it."
Meanwhile, the spending bill started at $6 trillion, as initially proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., but then was dropped to $3.5 trillion, and now it stands at about $2 trillion after a series of White House negotiations.
Hagerty said that is "just a trick."
"What we're talking about is a government dependency program," he said. "What happens after families adjust their style of living to the new payments that are coming from the government? Are we just going to put them on their heels and take it away? By the time our children and grandchildren finish paying for these government dependency programs, it's going to amount to tens of trillions of dollars."
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