U.S. Senate Leaders Joust Over Controlling Rising Inflation

Raging inflation in the United States took center-stage in the Senate on Tuesday, as Democrats focused on legislative efforts to ease the problem and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was set to meet with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

"I look forward to discussing inflation and the state of our economy with Chairman Powell this afternoon," McConnell said in a Senate speech.

"His creative leadership helped stabilize our entire economy during the uncertain early days of the COVID recession," McConnell said.

The announcement of the meeting came as McConnell blasted Democrats for policies that he said have stoked inflation and criticized some of President Joe Biden's Fed nominees who are being reviewed by the Senate.

The state of the U.S. economy and an inflation rate that hit a 40-year high in January is becoming a central issue in the mid-term election campaigns for Congress that will culminate with Nov. 8 elections. Republicans are vying to regain control of the Senate and House of Representatives where Democrats currently hold narrow majorities.

In the 12 months through January, the Consumer Price Index rose 7.5%. Food and energy price increases are hitting the pocketbooks of lower- and middle-class Americans.

McConnell, who hopes to become Senate majority leader in the Congress that begins next year, has been hammering away at President Joe Biden's Democrats for enacting the nearly $2 trillion in COVID pandemic aid legislation that Republicans blame for inflation.

Early suggestions by the Biden administration that inflation would be fleeting now appear to have caught Democrats flat-footed.

But the Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, on Tuesday defended his party's attempts to tame inflation and said more actions were under review.

He noted that legislation is now winding its way through Congress to relieve disruptions in U.S. supply chains caused by the pandemic and to increase domestic manufacturing.

A Democratic proposal to lower the cost of prescription drugs as part of a broader domestic investment bill has been killed by opposition from Republicans and two Senate Democrats.

Schumer said that later on Tuesday Senate Democrats will meet in a closed-door lunch to discuss other steps to battle inflation, but he did not elaborate.

A move to suspend the federal gasoline tax has been floating around Washington lately.

Noting Republican attacks, Schumer said: "Where are their actual proposals? We don't hear what they would do to solve the problem. Attacking the problem doesn't make it any better."