Transcripts For CSPAN WH 20240703 : vimarsana.com

I am an independent so i dont know if he has actually done anything wrong but i would like to know for sure because it looks like he assistance of the gronk. Host we are going live to the white house and for a press conference. Visited two countries and in the words of my friend some of us pulled some allnighters. I hope you have gotten some rest. I hope you had a quiet few days and good to see you again. The trip was highly successful and the president was pleased to show americas leadership on the world stage. The president is looking forward to a Major Economic speech and looks for favorable results. Before i turn it over to our c. E. A. Chair. I have a couple of things. Earlier this year, President Biden and congressional leaders reached a bipartisan budget agreement that set a framework to keep the government open and protect critical priorities for the American People. A deal is a deal. The president , house democrats, Senate Democrats have stood with that agreement with bipartisan movement but Speaker Mccarthy and House Republicans ignored the agreement that the majority of them voted for in advancing stream extreme. These bills would increase costs for families, hurting students, seniors and rural communities, slashing law enforcement, undermining manufacturing and so much more. And they are distracting from Top Priorities that we have Like Fighting the fentanyl crisis bringing Disaster Relief and helping ukraine. House republicans should keep their words and fund the government and we are talking about vital programs. Next up we have jared who has joined us several times before, but this is the first time he will be doing it as chair of the council of economic advisers. He is going to talk about the latest Economic Data that all of you have reported on this morning and preview the president s Major Economic speech. Jared, over to you. Thank you. After a brief comment about this mornings c. T. I. Report im going to say how biden nomics and trickledown economics doesnt work. Headline c. P. I. Rose 0. 6. Headline inflation has fallen substantially by 60 but we know last months increase in gas prices puts a strain. And 0. 3 in august. Over the past c. P. I. Is analyzed rate of 2. 4 the lowest since march of 2021 and close to prepandemic levels. This is important progress. By emitting gas and food prices it provides a cleaner signal as to where inflation is likely headed. That figure, this compares the contribution of gas and apparel to monthly inflation and pains a picture of the volatility of gas prices and then the apparel contribution is the red line. You get the point about the volatility of gas prices. Turning to bidenomics, real g. D. P. Supported by strong consumer and labor market and wage gains helping for inflation. Showing the extent to which you see inflation coming down and wages beating prices there both for middlewage workers. This figure includes todays inflation report. It is going more slowly than the pay of low and middle wage workers meaning their buying power is increased. Some of the breathing room that the president talks about. What does that have to do with bidenomics. Real wages is at the heart of our middle up, bottom out. And when the middle class is doing well, the overall economy prospers and that is good reason that trickle down doesnt work. It disproportionately helps those that dont need the help and spend the marginal dollar. When the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do well. Another sign that it is working both today and for tomorrow is this other figure showing investment in building and manufacturing facilities. The incentives in the inflation reduction, chips act are reversing decades of disinvestment in america through the werful onetwo punch of policy incentis cudding in private investment. That creates jobs today and good jobs tomorrow snapping these factories to semiconductors, solar panels and wind turbines. We must build on the progress we have made and maintaining the trade labor markets and easing price pressures. Many argue that it couldnt be done and would be higher. President biden never set the inevitability of that tradeoff and has been right. Let me close what you can hear in the president s speech tomorrow. The president traveled to chicago back in june to outline the Core Principles empowering workers, investing in america and boosting competition. Tomorrow he will lay out the very clean kron contrast the trickledown economic plan, a plan that has failed working families. Instead of investing in the middle class, trickle down, shifting jobs overseas and producing soaring deficits and will contrast with specific policies that the policies would mean in concrete terms for the American People whether unfair taxes, medicare and Social Security and increased costs for families and highlight for families as it Takes Center Stage in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you. And ill take questions. Reporter you mentioned gasoline prices pushing up. And oil prices are going up. Saudi arabia has said it will. Oil production. Are you worried that inflation is going to go back up over 4 . Lets talk about gas prices, as the president said in his statement he is well aware of the strain on Family Budgets and working with Congressional Democrats to cut energy costs. It is correct that gas prices caused nearly all of the increase in inflation last month but gas prices are down from last summers high by 1. 20. They peaked at 5. 00 in june of 2022. The Energy Department is in touch with refiners to ensure stable supply. There is some pressure relief coming in september in the switchover from the summer blend to the winter blend. The winter blend is a somewhat cheaper blend and we are moving out of peak driving season so lower demand takes pressure off. But i think the key point to leave you with on that question, the president and Congressional Democrats are investing in clean energy and reducing our dependence on foreign countries. I view my comments as closely connected to this idea of transition to clean energy and more energy independence. Reporter how closely are you tracking a spike in gas prices and that could erase some of the gains have been made in lowering inflation . One of the first thing is click on the aaa gas prices and we track it very closely. I think from a policy perspective, again, the actions we are taking working with Congressional Democrats to cut costs are at the core of our agenda. You mentioned gas prices and their impact on consumers. The president has been straight up including his statement this morning but i dont think you could divorce that from the efforts to reduce prices in other areas some much of which you could see in todays c. P. I. , the price of eggs, price of dairy. They came down. And i think the key thing probably one of the key points is that even accounting, this is the second half of my presentation if you could put that back up. The key point is that when wages are beating prices, wages beating prices, wages growing more quickly than inflation and most quickly for low and middle wage workers. And links up closely to one of the first of this to empowering workers. A tight labor market has delivered wage gains. That means that the buying power of your paycheck is going up and kind of breathing room we are looking at here. Reporter there could be a u. A. W. Strike. The president said he isnt worried that they will have a strike. I worked for President Biden a long time and one of the most prounion and encouraged parties to work 24 and 7 to get a winwin agreement that keeps u. A. W. Workers at the heart of our future and ensure that they are good middleclass jobs. The president understands that one of the focuses, one of the things that unions do they fairly distribute the benefits of growth. If you are baking the pie and contributing to productivity and Union Workers and auto workers contribute to that, you ought to get a fair shake and he has always supported unions. There is a long economic literature showing that unions and dynamic i am explaining to you are closely associated with the equitable distribution of earnings and one of the reasons why he is a prounion president and why he has talked about that in the context of bidenomics. Empowering workers. He believes the auto workers deserve a contract that sustains middleclass jobs and wants parties to work around the clock to get a winwin agreement. He has encouraged them to do so and an agreement that keeps the workers at the heart of our auto future and ensure those are good middleclass jobs. Reporter there were alarming figures that came out [indiscernible] what can the administration do to alleviate them . The explicit plan that we have talked about ever since the president got here and implemented is to extend the enhanced benefits of the Child Tax Credit. One of the things i took from that report yesterday is that your Child Poverty rate is a policy decision. This president decides to have the lowest child rate in history and that was his decision and others including 250 or Something Like that and members of the house, 50 republicans in the house and 50 republicans in the senate have made a different direction to double Child Poverty by allowing the Child Tax Credit that was doing the lifting to achieve that low poverty rate to on expire. And he wont stop fighting for that until we get it back. Reporter my question is [indiscernible] anything else he can do to address that issue . We continue to not only fight for the enhanced Child Tax Credit but do it in a fiscally way. That is in our budget. We have ample resources to offset that course and that is part of the 2. 5 trillion reduction that can be devoted to that policy. So not only are we talking about reachieving historically low levels of Child Poverty but doing so in the context of injecting much more fairness in the top end of the tax code. Two very important values, a progressive tax code hitting those above 400,000. Millionaires and billionaires talking about paying 8 effective tax rate. Thats not ok in an economic context where Congressional Republicans have allowed Child Poverty to double by refusing to extend the Child Tax Credit. Republicans more than doubled down on that unjust relationship by continuing to fight the extension of the Child Tax Credit while calling for trillions more in tax cuts. He is going to fight for those issues. Reporter can you talk more about the u. A. W. Strike. Can you talk about what the Economic Impacts would be to a strike. And considering how significant they are, what plans does the president have or what recommendations are you giving the president to step in more to help prevent this whether bringing them in and help with the negotiations for example . I have a readout and closely monitoring the c. E. A. , i think of us as constantly evaluating alternatives and we are waking up to figure out which way things are going. We are going to monitor this on a daily basis. But i dont have a readout on the situation. We are monitoring it. Reporter do you feel the president step in more perhaps bringing in the negotiators to help prevent this from happening . The president s been very much engaged. Not only has he fought for policies to enher that workers get a fair deal but that he has talked about the electric vehicle future being made in america by American Workers and he has met with the president before the u. A. W. Senior staff and called him on labor day and all three executives before he left for asia to encourage them to provide more leaning offers and stay at the table. Thats what the president has done and will continue to press on that as will the team that is monitoring the team closely. Two inflation reports where year after year the inflation number has gn up and coupled with hourly wages are down. Is that biden omics . We can show you c. E. A. s data. Real wages are up relative to before the pandemic up for all private Sector Workers and for nonsupervisory workers and term from the accomplishment survey. 80 of the work force blue collar and manufacturing or nonmanagers in services and those wages are above the prepandemic level. We just have a factual disagreement. In terms of t