Imagine if Build Back Better Had Passed

CLAY: With the economy, with the 8.5% inflation that we’re seeing which is the highest in 40 years, can you imagine where we would be if Joe Biden had actually gotten what he wanted, which was this $5 trillion plus additional federal spending from Build Back Better? I mean, as bad as things are for the economy right now, you basically had Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — two senators in the Democratic Party — who kept this from happening.

‘Cause, remember, it passed the House, and there were people who said, even when Joe Manchin was trying to dial back how much they were spending, “Hey, there’s no way that we should be… Now is the time to spend!” Remember they tried to argue, Buck, “Oh, this will actually make inflation better”? If they had spent that $5 trillion that they wanted to spend — and $5 trillion probably is not even a full calculation of what they were gonna be spending.

Can you imagine how much worse place we would be in? And it kind of draws back in again — and I don’t know the answer. But I do wonder if Republicans — and a lot of them are listening to us right now in the state of Georgia — had been able to win one of those Senate seats, how much different does things look even with this 8.5% inflation that we have now? I think if the Democrats had gotten what they want, Buck, we’re talking about 10 or 12% inflation as we talk right now. What if the Republicans had won just one of those Senate seats, what is inflation right now, 4 or 5%?

BUCK: And we should have won at least one of those Senate seats.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That was really a self-inflicted wound by the GOP. A lot of infighting, a lot of lack of strategic imperative and discipline in that moment in time after the 2020 election. It was very frustrating. But, yes. To your point, Clay, things are so absurd that Joe Biden got in the habit of doing his loud whisper thing (impression), “It’ll reduce inflation.” He was saying it would reduce inflation to spend trillions of dollars additionally beyond the trillions of dollars in the federal budget as it stands right now.

CLAY: We just dodged… Look, I know a lot of you out there listening to us right now are struggling, that one gallon of gas that had been bought right before kind of crystallized for me as I was getting ready. I drove down to Birmingham, met a lot of listeners, by the way, down in Birmingham over the weekend. But as bad as the Democrats have made the economy, they came close to making it infinitely worse. They cannot have any more power at all as we’re all dealing with the fallout from what they created.