Democrats shut their eyes to inflationary impact of Biden’s big spending bills

House Democrats rejected a resolution demanding an assessment from the Treasury Department on whether President Biden’s biggest spending bills over the last two years are contributing to inflation.

The GOP resolution requires the Treasury to provide any analysis it has done on this topic to Congress, and it was brought up Thursday at the House Oversight and Reform Committee markup. The resolution targets the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Biden signed in 2021, and the $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act he signed this year — economists have said both spending bills juiced demand in the U.S. and contributed to inflation levels that haven’t been seen in decades.

But Democrats voted to report the resolution "unfavorably" to the House floor, effectively killing it. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the top Republican on the committee, accused Democrats of willfully ignoring the inflationary effects of the trillions of dollars in spending approved by the Biden administration.

INFLATION RISKS REMAIN AS CONGRESS EYES BILLIONS IN YEAR-END SPENDING SPREE: BUDGET HAWK

"Even congressional Democrats knew their spending was harming the economy," Comer said. "Rep. Jim Clyburn recently admitted that they knew government spending for these alleged recovery programs would drive up prices. What an astounding admission."

While some Republicans supported the infrastructure bill, Comer said in hindsight that it ended up shelling out hundreds of billions of dollars at a time when the "American people are suffering under the weight of inflation."

Democrats rejected this argument and cited economists who said President Biden’s spending bills will help ease higher prices for consumers. Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., added that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a major cause of inflation, and accused Republicans of turning inflation "into a political sideshow."

FED OFFICIAL THROWS COLD WATER ON REPORT OF WANING INFLATION: ‘WE HAVE A WAYS TO GO’

But Republicans argued that many economists believe that flooding trillions of dollars of government spending created excess demand that led to higher prices, and that Democratic spending bills would only make the problem worse. Economists who agree say it’s a basic economic principle that excess money in the system leads to higher prices that the Federal Reserve is now trying to fight by increasing interest rates, which could cause a recession.

Several Republicans accused Democrats of trying to shield the Treasury Department from a congressional inquiry that could show officials knew that spending more would lead to higher prices.

"Why would my Democratic colleagues want to suppress documents that are part of their own executive branch leadership?" asked Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La. "Why would members of the Oversight Committee want to suppress availability of documents to be made available to the... members of this committee from the secretary of the Treasury?"

MORE SPENDING: CONGRESS FACES MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR MEDICARE FIX WHEN IT RETURNS AFTER MIDTERMS

Inflation has raised costs for millions of American families over the last two years and began ratcheting up as soon as Biden took office. According to the latest data from October, consumer prices are up 7.7% over the last year, and were higher than 8% in the year ending September.

Republicans have put forward dozens of similar "resolutions of inquiry" aimed at demanding information from the Biden administration on a range of topics. These resolutions are privileged, which means they must either be considered at the committee level or be allowed to come up on the House floor for a vote.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX BUSINESS APP

Democrats have defeated every one of these GOP resolutions, which serve as a roadmap for the kinds of oversight issues Republicans are expected to pursue next year when they hold a majority in the House.