All five of the co-hosts of Fox News’ midday program Outnumbered got in on the action Friday of taking shots at one of the Biden-Harris administration’s signature legislative accomplishments: the Inflation Reduction Act.
In their criticisms of the law they seemed completely unaware of the dramatic reduction of inflation that has occurred over the past two years, and they dishonestly characterized the bill as a sort of Trojan horse for major climate legislation.
On the September 6 edition of Fox News’ Outnumbered, co-host and former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany introduced the segment by slamming President Joe Biden for “admitting” that the Inflation Reduction Act “wasn't about inflation; it was really about his climate agenda.”
As the segment progressed, all of the co-hosts took turns deriding the “Inflation Explosion Act” for supposedly resulting in increased inflation and mocking President Joe Biden for his purported recent admission that the IRA was actually just a version of the Green New Deal.
Fox News’ production team also paired the segment with a misleading on-screen graphic criticizing Biden for annualized inflation rising from 1.4% before he took office to 9.1% in June 2022.
Both of Fox’s lines of attack are deeply misleading.
First, the Inflation Reduction Act is not simply a rebrand of the Green New Deal. Fox has been lying about this for years, and it has never been true.
The Biden administration has also not been secretive about the historic climate provisions included in the bill. As the bill was being negotiated in July 2022, The Washington Post touted that its provisions included “the nation’s biggest-ever climate bill.” CNN likewise described the law as “the largest climate investment in US history, and by far the biggest legislative win for the environmental movement since the Clean Air Act.” Last August, the White House marked the first anniversary of the passage of the IRA by releasing a fact sheet boasting that the IRA “is the most ambitious investment in combating the climate crisis in world history.”
Second, the inflationary peak the Fox personalities claimed to be so upset about occurred more than two years ago. The Inflation Reduction Act was negotiated in Congress and enacted into law amid that inflationary peak.
The IRA was enacted in August 2022 and, since it went into effect, all traditional measurements of inflation have improved considerably –– a fact McEnany glossed over.
Fox viewers were shown this graphic, which included only January 2021 (when the economy was still largely dampened by COVID) and June 2022 (peak of inflation). Fox could have easily shown its viewers more recent data, demonstrating that inflation has been stable for over a year and is now only slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels:
Fox personality Lisa Kennedy Montgomery slammed the administration, saying that working families “haven’t gotten a raise” and that the price of eggs has risen to “$10 a dozen,” but those statements are simply false.
In reality, average hourly wages are up, wage growth has outpaced inflation since May 2023, and the average egg price is $3 per dozen nationwide. Even with inflation, an analysis from the Center for American Progress shows that wage increases had surpassed price increases by November 2023.
