Hawkeye Reporter

Only U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) responded recently to questions from Hawkeye Reporter when it comes to the growing concerns, yet often mixed viewpoints, about the impact of inflation. 

The Hawkeye Reporter had reached out to Iowa federal legislators Reps. Cindy Axne (D), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) and Randy Feenstra (R) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R). None of the aforementioned congressional members responded. 

In her previous remarks to the Hawkeye Reporter about inflation, the Republican senator said that “Our families are already feeling the pinch from the rising costs of goods and services, and the last thing they want is higher taxes and higher prices."

Since COVID-19, inflation has steadily increased in the United States, driven in part by supply and demand and federal efforts to support an economy reeling from the pandemic's impact beyond public health concerns. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the consumer price index had spiked 5.4% over the course of a year through July. Among the inflation noted in the index were resources critical to Americans including food, which increased 3.4%; energy, which increased 23.8%; and used vehicles, which rose 41.7%.

Former President Barack Obama Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and current Harvard economist, Jason Furman, helped to author a report in the Peterson Institute for International Economics that found that inflation has put a damper on much of the wage gains that Americans have obtained dating back to the Trump administration.

Kristin Tate, who writes about government spending, said in a column for The Hill that there are two significant forces contributing to current inflation: “money printing by the Federal Reserve” and “massive government spending.”

Tate said the growing inflation was “Biden’s hidden tax on working Americans.”

Economist Stephen Moore has given his take and said in a RealClear Politics podcast that inflation is “the most regressive tax out there.”

The recent passage of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill had one of its authors, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and other Senate Democrats claiming that the bill would be fully paid for, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has since said that the $1 trillion installment of the infrastructure plan would add $256 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board reported that the only way Congress could cover those funds would be through additional tax hikes that are likely to happen.