On FOX Business, Portman Discusses Inflation, Tax Hikes in the Democrats' Build Back Better Legislation, and the Need for Pro-Growth Policies

Press Release

Senator Portman joined FOX Business' Kudlow this afternoon to discuss comments by President Biden, in which the President said that Republicans are to blame for the our current economic problems. Portman pointed out that not only are Democrats in control of the Senate, House, and the White House, but that the economy became overheated by the Democrats' $1.9 trillion stimulus package from last March -- which Republicans, and some Democrats even, warned against. Senator Portman highlighted that during the previous administration, there was three percent wage growth for 19 straight months, and now record levels of inflation that cut into higher wages as a result of the Democrats' overspending and partisan spending bills.

Senator Portman also discussed renewed efforts by Senate Democrats to pass its reckless tax and spending spree, which Portman said would be a mistake because it will raise taxes on middle and low-income Americans during a time of surging inflation.

Kudlow also touched on President Biden's upcoming trip to the Middle East, in which the President will ask Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia, to ramp up energy production in order to bring down soaring energy prices. Senator Portman pointed out the hypocrisy of the Biden administration asking other countries to produce more oil and gas when the United States has the capacity to do so and we have better environmental standards -- but that the administration has done everything it can since day one to discourage domestic oil and gas production.

A transcript of the interview can be found below and you can also watch the interview here.

PORTMAN ON PRESIDENT BIDEN BLAMING REPUBLICANS FOR CURRENT ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

"Yeah, I mean it's discouraging because we find ourselves in a situation where the people I represent are having to pay more and more for everything. The paycheck goes less and less far, you know, and yet they're talking about more and more taxes, particularly on small businesses where most people work in Ohio. No, it's not Republicans who are to blame, it is policy choices. They made some very specific policy choices during the campaign. They said they were going to discourage fossil fuel production. They have and look what results, when you cut supply of fossil fuels and you have demand coming out of COVID, you're going to have high prices and that is what happened. So, you've got $4.85 per gallon average right now. You know, that was a policy decision. The stimulus package, you remember, Larry, back in March of last year a number of us, Democrat, and Republican, because it included Larry Summers, famously, the former Treasury Secretary on the democratic side and others, said, you know, this is going to overheat the economy. And in fact, a bunch of us Republicans went down to the White House to say, "Slow down here, let's focus this thing on COVID. Let's not do a huge stimulus package. That is not what the economy needs right now.' The Congressional Budget Office was already telling us as were other non-partisan groups, "Hey, this economy is picking up nicely.' But, that big increase in spending caused a lot more demand and it is the reason for the inflationary problems that we see today, in combination with less supply, which happened partly because of COVID but largely, again, on the energy side because of the policy decision to say we'll have less supply and more demand. So, yeah, Larry, it is easy to blame other people I suppose, but you got to look in the mirror sometimes and it is these policy changes that have made the difference."

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"Yeah, we're in the minority. We're trying but, you know, we don't have the majority of the Senate or House right now. I think that will change in another several months here but for now, you know, we have to try to put the guardrails on to keep things from getting worse and reconciliation, you recall, Larry, is one of these things where we have no say. In other words, Democrats can do it on their own under the budget rules. My sense is that they're going to move ahead aggressively with whatever they get done. My hope we keep that from happening. Again, we've been successful the last 18 months, since the last time they did this. And my hope is they will see, again, this does not make sense for the American people. Let's give this economy a chance to get back on its feet by keeping demand under control. Increasing supply, that's the key, keeping supply up. Let's not just rely on the Fed dampening demand by higher and higher interest rates. That hurts everybody. Let's have a soft landing here, but we can't do it with these policies that they're talking about putting in place."

PORTMAN ON TAMING INFLATION

"Well, no, particularly given the campaign. Remember during the campaign he ran as the person who wanted to work with Republicans to get things done. He ran against Bernie Sanders who was his primary opponent and said, "Look, you're on the far left. I'm more of a guy who has learned how to work over the years with the other side. I want to be the conciliator. I want to heal the country.' Then you look at the policies and unfortunately, the policies have led us down a path, as you say, is really radical compared to what he campaigned on and certainly in terms of its impact on inflation, the economy, energy prices, particularly. There is a direct link there. So, yeah, this is really discouraging. What's terrible about it to me is that there was an opportunity there to work together and to try to come up with something that made sense, to deal with COVID, and then get back to the pro-growth policies that remember, before COVID hit, we had incredible economic growth. We had wage gains over the previous 19 months of three percent or more every single month. People I represent were feeling good. Why? Because their paycheck was going up way higher than inflation and they had the opportunity to get ahead in life. So that is what we got to get back to. And that comes from pro-growth policies. They don't need to be partisan policies. Just policies that make sense for the American economy and that is not what is happening."

PORTMAN ON THE POSSIBILITY OF SMALL BUSINESS TAX HIKES

"That's the one that scares me the most because that is where most people work in America. That is where most of the people who are middle and lower-income work and those are the folks that will be hit really hard. Pass-throughs for those who don't follow this stuff, you know, 90 some percent of American businesses are pass-throughs. They don't pay taxes as corporations. They pay taxes as individuals. The owners pay the taxes. If you go after the people, what are they going to do? All studies say the same thing, by the way, a Joint Committee on Taxation study that was released just today, that analyzes the impact of the tax increases in so-called "Build Back Better' legislation, and it says about 33 billion of it comes out of pockets of people who are low income and middle income. Why? Because it hurts the workers and it hurts the consumers. So, don't go after small business. This is a huge mistake, it's something that is going to help fund more spending which will cause more demand, which is going to cause more inflation, but it is also going to hurt the very people whose wages right now are not keeping up with inflation. Don't dock their wages further and don't continue to make it harder for them to make ends meet."

PORTMAN ON TAX REFORMS AND REGULATORY RELIEF

"It is going to hurt jobs and you're absolutely right, the three percent wage growth for 19 straight months that I talked about earlier, in my view, was largely the result of tax reforms, also regulatory relief. But bottom line is, it helped the people we wanted to help the most. It was the lower, middle income workers who had the biggest increase in their wages. That is what you want to do. That is what happened. Just the opposite will happen if these taxes are put in place. By the way, other countries around the world don't apply that minimum tax. It means that American workers are going to be the ones disadvantaged. That doesn't make any sense. We want to encourage more American products to go overseas. We want to encourage American companies to be engaged in the global economy because it creates jobs in America. That is the whole point. It creates good-paying jobs in America. If you put in place a punitive tax on U.S. businesses that's not on European businesses, that's not on Japanese businesses, that's not on Chinese businesses -- that hurts American workers. So, I do worry about this, Larry, and my hope we can keep this from happening as we have successfully over the last 18 months and if we don't I think this inflation will get worse and I think we are going see less economic growth and I think we are going to see wages for, again, the lower, middle-income workers continue to stagnate as compared to inflation. Because inflation will be relatively high, wages relatively low. Let's get back to growth. Let's get back to giving people the chance to get ahead in life."

PORTMAN ON THE FAILURE OF JCPOA

"No, it didn't work. And it didn't work in part because frankly, other countries in the world were not helping to be able to put in place multilateral sanctions on Iran. In fact, you know, you had some countries that were dealing with Iran. So, Iran wasn't feeling the pressure. No, the legislation that was passed here in Congress, which said that we should not move forward with this deal, we didn't get enough votes, we didn't get 60 votes, but we got a majority, was because we didn't feel the agreement was going to be effective in getting what the administration, at that time, was saying -- that was back during the Obama years. Unfortunately, we were correct. You have to only ask the other countries in the region, including the Arab countries in the Gulf region, including Israel, what they thought of it. Unfortunately, that agreement had to be renegotiated because it was not working. So that's what the administration ought to be doing now rather than going back to the old agreement. So, we'll see. What's interesting about this trip, Larry, to me, that he is going over there to ask them to produce more oil so that we have more fossil fuel oil and gas being developed in those countries which, by the way, is not done in the same kind of environmental standards that we have. So, it is not as clean as ours yet here at home, somehow, we can't produce and, therefore, are more dependent on these other countries whether it is Saudi Arabia or Venezuela or other countries that you don't want to be dependent on, like Iran. So, I think there will be a certain disconnect there when at home we're saying we are going to discourage fossil fuel development and there we're saying we would like you to produce more to send to us by ship in terms of liquefied natural gas or oil, which makes no sense. A lot more CO2 emissions will be occurring as a result."

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