SOUTHERN COLORADO — On Tuesday, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, meaning some Americans can expect to see certain costs go down. But when it comes to gas prices and groceries, the average person should not expect to keep more money in their wallets as a result of this move.
""I think the name is a bit of a misnomer. I don't think it's going to reduce inflation in any way shape or form, maybe in three to five years," said Joe Craig, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at UCCS, when asked his opinion on the new law.
The Inflation Reduction Act tackles the expenses such as sky-high prescription drug costs or providing tax breaks to anyone purchasing an electric vehicle; it does not aggressively tackle the financial turmoil some Americans are facing now, as consumer prices climb at their fastest rate in about four decades.
"The executive branch has very little power to combat inflation anyways so there is not much they could do even if that was their only goal in the world, there's not much they could do anyways. That's why we have a federal reserve, that's their job," said Craig.
The over $700 billion dollar piece of legislation passed with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a tied vote.
"Understand people's incentives... So incentives of politicians are to get re-elected. They may come in with the best of intentions towards helping as many people as they can; if they're not re-elected, they can't do any good."
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