Stephen Moore on Stagflation, Student Loan Forgiveness: Biden Admin ‘Doesn’t Seem to Get It’

Stephen Moore speaks at the CPAC 2020 in Maryland in February 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

The Biden administration appears “clueless” when it addresses the ongoing stagnant economic growth and persistent inflation, which could lead to a rerun of the 1970s, said economist and former Reagan advisor Stephen Moore.

In an interview with EpochTV’s “Crossroads“ program, Moore said the United States is seeing ”some signs” of stagflation, which is the combination of high inflation and an economy that is slowing down or retreating. The last time the country experienced stagflation was in the 1970s, which is followed by a severe economic recession in the early 1980s.

“We’re not in a recession right now as we speak,” Moore told host Joshua Philipp. “We did get one negative quarter of growth—it would take two quarters to officially be in a recession—but we’re skating near a recession right now. And this is a frightening and precarious time for the U.S. economy and for American families.”

“Right now it’s getting worse,” he said. “Every single day and week and month that we delay in terms of dealing with the inflation problem, it gets worse.”

When asked about who should be blamed for the current situation, Moore said while he recognizes that there are a lot of factors contributing to it, he believes the “runaway spending” by the federal government is “the major culprit.”

“A lot of the spending actually happened in the final months of the Trump administration because of the COVID crisis, but then Biden came in and spent $3 trillion more,” he said. “This was an avalanche of new spending—all of the social programs and welfare programs, bailing out blue states. That has led to all this money in the economy.”

Moore also pointed to the rising gas prices, arguing that Americans wouldn’t have to worry about it if Donald Trump remained in the White House and the United States remained a net exporter of oil and gas.

“I really believe that if Trump were president today, we'd be at about 15 million barrels of production today, not 10 or 11 million. That’s a big difference,” he said. “Think about what that would add to our GDP, if we can produce it here at home rather than rather than having to import it.”

When it comes to Biden’s yet-to-be-revealed plan to potentially cancel hundreds of millions of dollars of federal student loan debt, Moore said he found “so much wrong” with that policy, which essentially makes people who did work hard to pay off their loans look like fools.

“They’re the fools because the government is going to give forgiveness to the people who didn’t. What kind of incentives does that give to people? How many people do you think if we do this will ever repay a student loan?” he asked, adding that colleges and universities that have “egregiously overcharged people” with massive tuition hikes should use their money to pay off the debts.

“The whole point is that the Biden administration just doesn’t seem to get it,” Moore said. “For example, Joe Biden said month after month after month the way to solve the inflation problem is to pass the ‘Build Back Better’ bill. How is putting $5 trillion more money into the economy going to reduce inflation?”

“So I do worry [about] this administration that seems kind of clueless about how to deal with a major problem,” he continued, saying that he lived through the 1970s and witnessed how the U.S. economy deteriorated during those years.

“I saw it got worse and worse and worse and worse and worse year after year after year. And then we crashed the economy,” he said. “I don’t want to see that happen again.”