Hoyer says 'Biden economy is a good economy,' claims Democrats' spending bill can fix inflation

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer defended President Biden's performance on the economy Wednesday, arguing that he's responsible for significant improvements in major metrics and that his economic agenda can help fix inflation. 

"The Biden economy is a good economy," Hoyer, D-Md., said, while acknowledging that "some disparage" it. 

"We have historic job growth. Six-point-four million jobs and the largest yearly increase in labor force participation in a quarter of a century," Hoyer said. He added that unemployment fell from "6.4% to 3.9%, the biggest single-year drop in American history." 

Biden's critics argue such framing of the economy is dishonest. They say the president assumed office in the throes of a major COVID-19 wave and is simply riding the natural economic recovery from the pandemic – which they argue is being slowed by Democrats' restrictive COVID-19 policies. 

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Biden's allies say it's because of the president's handling of the pandemic – particularly on vaccines – that the economy recovered to the point it has, even if that is short of 2019 baselines. Hoyer Wednesday also praised Biden for his recent effort to make rapid coronavirus tests available for free to all Americans. 

Hoyer said, however, that Democrats cannot look at the economy through only "rose- colored glasses" when "inflation is a problem for the American people, and we need to deal with that." But he argued that Democrats are already addressing it through their massive reconciliation spending bill, called the Build Back Better Act, which is currently stalled in the Senate.

"The Build Back Better Act will bring down costs for American families," Hoyer said, with several provisions that will "provide for greater production, greater supply, which will then bring down inflation and fill those empty shelves."

Among the provisions Democrats tout as potentially helping bring down inflation is free child care, which they argue would allow more people to rejoin the workforce and help solve supply issues that are contributing to high prices. 

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"We have to make sure people can in fact work," Hoyer said. "We will see inflation come down if the Build Back Better is adopted, and I hope that it will be adopted in the near term." 

The problem for Hoyer and Democrats is that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., made extremely clear he has no interest in supporting the reconciliation bill. And despite weeks of pressure after he first announced his opposition to the entire bill on "Fox News Sunday," there's been no indication that he's changing his mind or that negotiations are restarting. 

Some Democrats say the best thing their party can do is start breaking the reconciliation bill into smaller bite-sized bills and passing them that way. But Hoyer said he has no interest in that strategy.

"There's this talk about breaking it up. We passed a bill. It's now in the Senate. The process works by the Senate saying I agree with this or I don't agree with that and passing their own bill," Hoyer said when asked about potentially breaking up the bill. 

"I'm hopeful that we will pass Build Back Better in a form that the Senate can adopt and will adopt under reconciliation," Hoyer added. "Reconciliation is key to that because that allows you to pass 51 votes."

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Hoyer is correct that if Democrats brought up smaller pieces of the reconciliation bill under regular order they would face a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. 

But Democrats, under a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian, can revisit old reconciliation vehicles and therefore pass multiple pieces of legislation at the 51-vote threshold. The only catch is they would have to overcome a marathon vote-a-rama each time. 

Hoyer nevertheless said he believes Democrats, despite Manchin's opposition and growing election year pressures, can usher the massive spending bill to Biden's desk. 

"I think we're gonna pass Build Back Better in a form that will be of great assistance to the American people," he said.