GOP lawmaker wants Yellen to admit inflation ‘mea culpa’ in House testimony

Rep. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., is among one of the lawmakers planning to question Treasury Secretary and former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen in front of the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. The lawmaker said he hopes to hear Yellen acknowledge her error in advocating for big spending programs, which Kustoff believes has worsened inflation, on "Mornings with Maria" Tuesday.

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REP. DAVID KUSTOFF: I'd like to hear a mea culpa. She advocated for these big spending programs like the American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure bill that was passed in November. We know that that has pumped literally trillions of dollars into the economy, and you don't have to be an economist to know that when the federal government prints that much money and flushes it into the system, that has tremendous inflationary pressures.

When the first two things that people talk to me about, and I'm sure every other member of Congress is, 'I'm paying a whole lot more for gasoline and I'm paying a lot more at the grocery store than I did 12, 18 months ago,' it's real.

So number one: Was she wrong? Is this administration wrong for advocating these big spending programs? And then I'm going to ask her to put on her Fed chairman cap because, obviously, she was the chairman of the Federal Reserve. How tight does the current Federal Reserve need to tighten policy to beat this down? And does that cause a recession? And do we see a soft landing?

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