Transcripts for FOXNEWS The Faulkner Focus 20220125 16:23:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
legislatively. he wants to spend more money and build back better is what he promised. you are asking him to break that promise. you aren t the only one. some democrats are asking him to break that promise. the latest fox news polling shows that inflation is the top worry for americans with 85% saying they are extremely or very concerned about it. republicans are favored by 15-point margin over democrats as who is better equipped to handle the economy. how do you account for that? let me first say what makes you think i m only a republican? i voted for democrats over the years. probably as much as republicans. harris: there you go. what i would say is that the voters are correct on the problem with inflation. these things are really serious and the government should be doing that and if biden is all stuck on build back better, $5 or $6 trillion he won t control inflation. it will get worse and worse and worse. if the fed is sitting there wanting to keep interests rates
at zero percent or 1 or 2%, when you have inflation of 7% per year which was the last reading, that means that the real interest rate is about minus 5 1/2%, harris. if you had to pay the government to let them borrow your money, what does that make? you ve got to raise the interest rate above the inflation rate which is 10 year bond yield is 8% which is huge. no one is going to do that. these guys are stuck with it as far as i can tell. now, it is much easier forecasting the past than the future. my view is that they re not doing anything that will slow down inflation. if anything they re trying to make it worse. harris: oh boy. i don t mean to tell you bad news. harris: we want the truth. the american people are not weak, we can take the truth but you have to tell us the truth. and not in a drip drip fashion. we appreciate it. you may talk over my head.
innovate. but what we have seen over the last few decades. less competition, more concentration, literally holds the economy back rather than doing what they should be doing. they are doing the opposite. having a negative impact. harris: oh my goodness. we re in a supply crisis right now. there is more competition than we know what to do with among these companies. everybody is trying to fill the orders. they can t get to it. meanwhile the washington post reports four ways inflation is a political problem for biden. they are smothering wage growth, a global problem that leaders cannot control, a local problem that biden cannot control, and a now problem. art laffer, former economic advisor to president reagan. great to see you on the program today. nice to have you in focus. first of all if you could just tell the president exactly where we are in this moment and a few things to do, what would you say to him? what i would say is stop
spending money. if you give people money they will then go out and buy goods and services you stimulate demand which larry sommers is the truth. anything like build back better will make the demand situation worse and cause inflation to be higher. second thing is you want to encourage people to come back into the labor force so you can increase the supply of goods and services. reducing demand and increasing supply will control inflation and you do that i believe by having the payroll tax making it much more attractive for workers instead of staying home to come back and work and make more money and good for producers and companies. it is great for them and lastly i would tell the fed to stop buying government bonds. just stop it. don t keep funding all of this stuff and allowing for the monetary system to accommodate any type of increase in prices harris: the one collision i foresee with that great advice you give the president it doesn t fit what he wants to do