Heritage Foundation economist E. J. Antoni quickly set a former Biden official straight after she tried to promote spending on green energy as a solution to economic woes.
During a July 12 segment on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Jennifer Harris, the director of the Hewlett Foundation’s Economy and Society Initiative, lauded massive government spending on “cleaner energy sources” as a potential cure for inflation. Notably, she previously served in the Biden Administration. Despite claiming her position was not for the government to “get woke on climate,” Harris said, “At least energy is—moving to a set of cleaner energy sources for the grid that, not for nothing, don't have the kind of inflationary channels that oil and gas do. We had a moment in the [Inflation Reduction Act] and in the other public investments that we’ve had, to sever some of these traditional channels for inflation.”
CNBC anchor Joe Kernen didn’t seem impressed. He brought up the massive costs of switching energy sources, asking Antoni if the transition to beat inflation would be worth it.
Antoni offered a decisive “No.” He added, “Solar and wind may very well one day be our main source of energy but they simply can't today. They're net losers. And so if you look at things like the [Inflation Reduction Act] by the way, not only are they helping to strangle reliable sources of cheap energy like coal, oil and natural gas, but on top of that, they’re funneling more scarce resources into solar and wind, which, again, are net losers.”
Harris had the chutzpah to offer this absurd cure immediately after CNBC host Melissa Lee brought up the IRA as an inflation driver. Antoni didn’t let this slide, digging into wasteful IRA spending.
Antoni called out the Biden administration for allocating $7.5 billion and then building just 7 charging stations in over two years. Antoni said, “Spending billions of dollars to build literally a handful, that’s not an exaggeration, a handful of EV charging stations.” Monthly inflation has averaged 5.4% under the Biden administration as the president signs massive spending bill after massive spending bill.
The Heritage Foundation economist took issue with Harris’s language before reminding CNBC viewers that the consequences of wild spending go beyond inflation: “What I do know is that the Fed's hands are tied here, because the government is spending trillions of dollars it doesn't have. I mean my goodness, look at the data we got yesterday for the treasury’s monthly statement for the month of June where we spent $140 billion just in interest on the debt. That’s not paying it down. That’s just the interest.”
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