Democrat Rep Says We Don’t ‘Have to Reduce’ Gas Prices, We Can Lower Other Costs with Spending Bill

OPINION | This article contains opinion. This site is licensed to publish this content.

Democrats are often criticized for their out-of-control spending and economic illiteracy.

Appearing on MSNBC, Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington provided another example that shows how the Left has received this reputation.

Jayapal, who is currently the Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair, was responding to a question about what the Biden administration and Congress should do about raising gas prices.

Chuck Todd asked, “Is there anything you think the administration or you in Congress should attempt to do to alleviate the gas price pain temporarily?”

“It isn’t really that you have to reduce the gas price, what you have to do is reduce the costs for families.” she began.

Reducing cost “doesn’t have to be through lowering gas prices,” she continued.

“That’s what I’m saying with Build Back Better,” Jayapal added. “If we lower costs, that’s what a family is looking at.”

Her constituents “are not talking about inflation, by the way,” she claims.

“That’s what my families are saying, is, look, the gas is one thing, but if I can get my child care paid for, heck, I’m in. I’m good for that.”

“So, that’s — I think that’s how we should be looking at it. And sometimes the economic views of inflation or massive rises in inflation, that’s not really how people experience things on the ground.”

“They’re talking about, hey, I don’t have enough money in my budget to pay for the things I need to pay for. And the reason I say it that way is because it’s really important to understand that if you’re on a fixed budget, as many people are, as I have been in my life, then what you’re always trying to do is balance what you have to spend with what you have in that budget.”

“The way that we can fix that immediately while the supply chain issues are being worked out, while the economy recovers from COVID and the worst economic downturn we’ve seen in recent history is we can actually help families cut their costs.”

“How do we do that?” she asked. “We pass the Build Back Better Act.”

Jayapal claims that provisions in the Democrats’ spending bill “are the things that are going to immediately affect people’s pocketbooks, and that is why it is so important to pass the Build Back Better Act, which, I think, is actually going to help people survive through this time of recovery.”

“Let’s be clear, it is going to take time to recover. We knew that. We have made tremendous progress on COVID.”

— Advertisement —

‘But my families are telling me, look, I still don’t have child care. My kids are just starting to get vaccinated and go back to school.”

“That’s the uncertainty that families are living with, and we have to respond by cutting their costs, which is exactly what we do in Build Back Better.”