The White House on Tuesday unveiled its plan to fight inflation, broadly repeating the administration’s long-standing proposals to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, cut prescription drug and health care costs, and invest in infrastructure.
Because the president does not have the power to make all the proposed changes unilaterally, the plan is essentially a congressional wish list that fails to show bipartisan support for most proposals.
Central thesis
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The Biden administration has announced its anti-inflation proposal.
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Inflation hit 8.3% in April, just below a 40-year high.
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The plan includes many of the president’s longstanding proposals, including clean energy, expanding health insurance, investing in infrastructure, and more.
Details of the Biden administration’s plan to fight inflation
The Biden-Harris inflation plan aims to lower costs for everyday consumers while reducing the federal government’s deficit through tax reform that would increase taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
Details of the Biden-Harris plan include:
- Increase oil supply: The president has authorized the release of 1 million barrels per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next six months and has encouraged allies to tap their reserves as well.
- E15 sales allowed in summer: E15 gasoline containing domestic biofuels has traditionally been banned in summer due to pollution concerns. The president lifted the ban in the summer of 2022.
- Encouraging the Oil Industry to Increase Production: The administration has asked Congress to impose a fee on idle oil wells and state-owned land that is not used for production to encourage oil companies to increase production.
- Promoting Clean Energy Causes: The administration has asked Congress to pass clean energy tax credits and investments to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and achieve energy independence.
- Reduce prescription drug and health care costs: Administration asks Congress to address “family problems” in the Affordable Care Act, which prevents hundreds of thousands of families from qualifying for premium tax credits, and passes legislation to lower health care costs for prescription drugs and health insurance premiums , and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices and make other prescription price reforms.
- Increase Food Production: The President has called for resources to help farmers increase food production, including fighting illegal pricing, enforcing antitrust laws in meat processing, investing federal funds to create more competition in meat processing, and providing support for farm workers and victims. Small businesses affected by the pandemic.
- Repairing Infrastructure: The President believes that repairing our infrastructure, supply chain and manufacturing processes will help eliminate port bottlenecks, increase truck driver wages, and more.
- Lower Childcare and Long-Term Care Costs: The President has asked Congress to pass legislation that invests in reducing childcare and long-term care costs for affected families.
- Build more affordable housing: The administration is also asking Congress to pass legislation to invest in 1 million affordable housing units through tax credits, federal construction funding, and community incentives to remove barriers to new construction.
The day after the White House plan was announced, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released inflation data for April, showing that prices rose an average of 8.3%. Housing, groceries, airline tickets and new cars saw the biggest increases.
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