Apparently Biden and his White House team loves these high gas prices. According to Psaki today, the rise in gas prices helps make the case for clean energy or something:
Q Following up on Weijia’s first question about workforce imbalances, you said that it’s a worker’s market and that some industries need to create more competitive packages, that it’s a good thing people have more choices. Is that your way of saying that the White House doesn’t view this as a problem at all?
MS. PSAKI: I think I also said in response to Weijia’s question that there are some industries where we’re seeing labor shortages; there are a couple of reasons for that. But some of the people — the workers — and we’ve seen this statistically in a lot of surveys — people — many people across the country feel this is a good time to change jobs — right? — to look for a more competitive job. What I’m saying is: Ultimately, that’s a good thing. It is challenging in certain industries when they do have labor shortages.
Some industries, in terms of some short-term ind- — industries that have short-term workers or seasonal workers, COVID is an issue there and continuing to address COVID. In our view, putting in place requirements to provide more certainty, that’s an issue.
Another issue is childcare, something we’re working to attack and go after aggressively so that we can lower the cost of childcare and make sure people have a range of options to bring more women into the workforce. So, there’s a range of issues; I’m not saying it’s one thing.
Certainly, we have concern about any industry that has a shortage of workers, but also, I don’t think we should undervalue the fact that many workers feel this is a time to look for a better job with greater pay and more benefits.
Q And then following up on the questions about gas prices again — just kind of taking a step back, there’s some Republicans who have taken this moment where they’ve seen gas prices spike to criticize sort of the administration, big picture. Right? Canceling the Keystone Pipeline, halting leases for — new drilling leases on federal lands, saying that, sort of, the administration’s policies writ large have contributed to the rise in gas prices. What’s your response now to that?
MS. PSAKI: Our response is that, one, we haven’t — we haven’t cancelled existing. There are existing leases that are continuing. And just to be clear, I know you know —
Q Sorry. Not new leases.
MS. PSAKI: Not new leases.
Q You’re right.
MS. PSAKI: But just to be clear — and I know that’s been a criticism — so that’s why I said that — and not an accurate one.
Look, our view is that the rise in gas prices over the long term makes it an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy options so that we are not relying on the fluctuations and OPEC and their willingness to put more supply and meet the demands in the market. That’s our view.
We feel that — but we also feel that there are a number of actors here, including price gouging, that we have concerns and we’ve seen out there — we feel we’ve seen; we’ve asked the FTC to look into the need for OPEC to release more — that are the larger issues here and that’s why we’ve been focused on those options.
Q Jen —
MS. PSAKI: Let me just keep going around. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Q Thanks. Just following up on this — and I kind of want to go at this inflation question a bit differently.
MS. PSAKI: Sure.
Q I mean, it seems like the White House is making a lot of promises on inflation. But there are some concerns that the White House or a President doesn’t have any — a lot power over inflation. And even when you talk about energy prices, in particular, like gasoline — you’re talking about the FTC doing investigations — that’s a common tactic. It usually doesn’t turn out very much. Tapping the SPR, that’s a short-term thing; it’s not a long-term thing.
So, I guess my question is: For the White House, you’re making these promises — how do you deliver, especially on things like gasoline, food prices? Yes, you can, you know, deal with childcare costs, but these kind of bread-and-butter issues, how do you actually deliver on that?
MS. PSAKI: Well, the — some of the biggest costs — the reason I touched on those is: Some of the biggest costs for households and Americans — and the way they feel inflation is not typically looking at a graph, right? They’re looking at the costs and how things are impacting them — are things like housing and childcare and healthcare.
Q But also, gasoline is a very big cost.
MS. PSAKI: Correct. But those are big, big costs on people’s households. And that’s why I addressed and raised those issues.
I’d also note that every outside economist — most — a vast majority, I guess I should say — predicts that inflation will come down next year. That is what outside experts are predicting.
So, what we’re really talking about is how we cut costs in the short term. I’ve outlined a number of ways we would cut costs.
I would note that we don’t have partnership from — with — from most Republicans on that. We hear a lot of screaming about inflation. We don’t hear a lot of solution agreements or willingness to participate in a solution, and that’s really — or a discussion of a solution. And that’s really what we’re looking for at this point in time.
So, I noted that the way that we can, and how outside economists are projecting we can address inflationary issues, is by continuing to push this agenda forward — pass the agenda — because it will help spur economic growth, it will help spur productivity, and also because it’s fully paid for. And that’s why outside economist Larry Summers, Moody’s, Mark Zandi don’t think it will have a negative inflationary impact.
Q On a separate issue: On November 16th, there are about 200 acting positions in the federal government that will kind of lose their authority under the Federal Vacancies Act. Like, what is the White House planning to do about that? You know, is there any — are there plans in place about those acting positions, acting roles?
MS. PSAKI: We’d certainly love to get more people confirmed, as you know. I will check and see if there’s anything we can outline further for you.
