White House pushes back on view that $2 trillion fiscal package caused inflation

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday pushed back after a reporter asked if President Joe Biden takes responsibility for high U.S. inflation because last year he signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package into law that economists such as Larry Summers said at the time wasn’t needed. "Well, the alternative would have been that we would have gone into a massive economic downward spiral, and many Americans would have not had enough food to put on the table. So we chose the other path," Psaki said during a press briefing.

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