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FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith says that Democratic policies are clearly to blame, in part, for the current levels of inflation the U.S. is experiencing.

The consumer price index surged 8.5 percent in March compared to a year ago, up from 7.9 percent in February, CNBC reported. The rate was the highest since December 1981.

By way of comparison, the month former President Donald Trump left office, January 2021, the inflation rate was 1.4 percent.

Asked by Fox News host Bret Baier Wednesday to give his overview of where the nation’s economy stands, Smith addressed inflation.

“We still have substantial growth, but as you mentioned substantial inflation. I think the best person that commented on the current situation before it got started was Larry Summers, the former Democratic treasury secretary who forewarned about these inflation pressures,” Smith said.

“It’s a combination of a lot of things that began with the pandemic and the instant reduction of demand and then the stimulus payments created demand for goods and then the third stimulus payment about a year ago created a significant labor shortage,” he added.

In a February 2021 Washington Post opinion piece, Summers wrote that passing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, given the economy was already well into a recovery, “will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability.”

After it passed the following month, the former Clinton administration treasury secretary called it “the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years.”

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Smith referenced his own experience at FedEx with the impact of the legislation.

“I’m not making any political statement one way or the other, but we know from our own statistics and can track exactly when the stimulus checks went out in April and May of last year, and we had about 50,000 [job] applications the first week in May,” he told Baier.


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