Republican Blames The Trump-Era $2.2 Trillion CARES Act For Inflation: ‘I Was Against It… And Here We Are’

 

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) offered a surprising concession during a discussion with Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) during a debate on the achievements of the current GOP-led House of Representatives.

Neguse charged the current Congress of passing far fewer bills than the previous one, a metric Massie discarded as meaningless.

Massie argued “we shouldn’t confuse activity with progress” while claiming that Neguse was including post office naming and other frivolous acts of Congress in his statistic to show the last Congress worked harder.

Massie continued to debate Neguse on the point and pivoted to say, “Well, included in this statistic is the CARES Act, which has been you know, that was the $2 trillion that Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi.”

“And almost your entire conference voted for. Yes,” Neguse shot back, noting it was a bipartisan measure championed by the Trump White House to deal with Covid-19.

“Yes. And I was against it because I said it would cause inflation. And yeah, I said it would cause inflation and shortages and a lot of long-term mal-effects to the economy. And here we are,” Massie concluded, arguing that the inflation of the last three years can be attributed to the massive stimulus passed by the last Congress and signed into law by then-President Trump.

Watch the clip above.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!

Tags:

Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing