Today, Ranking Member Mike Lee sent a letter to the Senate Committee on the Budget providing the Joint Economic Committee’s (JEC’s) economic evaluation of the Budget of the U.S. Government for Fiscal Year 2023.

The JEC is responsible for providing views and estimates of the Budget to meet its statutory goals described in Section 301(d) of the Congressional Budget Act.

Lee’s letter provides the Committee’s assessment of the President’s Budget as follows:

• The Budget overstates economic growth and understates inflation. By obscuring central components of President Biden’s economic agenda, the Budget creates more confusion than clarity.

• Inflation fueled by the United States’ excessive COVID fiscal response continues to erode the purchasing power of American families, costing the average household $569 extra in April 2022 to purchase the same items they bought in January 2021. By misdiagnosing the causes of inflation, the Budget could add at least a third of a percentage point to the inflation rate by 2023.  

• Total real labor market earnings remain 7.6 percent below their pre-pandemic trend due to high inflation and a 6.4 million worker shortfall. The Budget does little to address these trends and could make it harder for the U.S. to return to full employment.

• The pro-growth policies implemented before the pandemic, including deregulation and tax cuts, benefited low-income and otherwise disadvantaged Americans the most through a strong labor market and healthy economy. The Budget ignores these lessons from the pre-pandemic economy by increasing taxes and elevating an agenda of increasingly costly regulations.  

You can read the full letter HERE.