Congresswoman Miller Questions Secretary Yellen on President Biden's Budget
March 10, 2023
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Carol Miller (R-WV) and the Committee on Ways and Means questioned the Secretary of Treasury, the Honorable Janet Yellen, on the President’s budget. During the hearing, Congresswoman Miller highlighted that since the Biden Administration entered the White House, calls for oversight hearings on trillions of dollars of deficit spending from Republicans have been ignored and rejected, leading to the greatest theft of taxpayer dollars in American history. She questioned Secretary Yellen on the false claim of high inflation being transitory and lowering the 1099-K threshold requirements. Congresswoman Miller concluded her questioning by asking Secretary Yellen if she would like to apologize to her constituents for lying about inflation being transitory, to which Secretary Yellen verbally meandered but failed to say “I’m sorry.”
Congresswoman Miller began by asking Secretary Yellen on the 1099-K threshold requirement.
“Secretary Yellen, in your Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals, you recommended that Congress lower the 1099-K threshold from the time tested standard to just $600 with no transaction minimum, in order to quote “close the tax gap,” said Congresswoman Miller. The IRS delayed the implementation of the provision that you recommended, for a full year and cited the difficulty in administering the program as one reason for this delay. If this policy was too difficult for the IRS to get right after a year of work with your 87,000 new agents, how do you expect an individual selling some old furniture to handle the cost and compliance burden?”
“Well, this was enacted into law in the American rescue plan, as you pointed out, and the IRS began to implement it as required and heard a number of concerns by individuals and organizations that this was confusing.” said Secretary Yellen, who refused to answer the question.
Congresswoman Miller concluded her questioning by asking Secretary Yellen on the record high inflation and demanding an apology to West Virginians.
“In May 2021, just after the Biden administration pushed through a $1.9 trillion spending bill on a partisan vote, you claimed that the 5% inflation at the time would be transitory, meaning temporary and brief. A year later, inflation hit a 40 year high of 9.1%,” said Congresswoman Miller. “Would you like to apologize to my constituents, and those of my colleagues, for being wrong and insisting inflation was transitory when so many of us warned you it was not?”
“Well, inflation is the President's top priority to bring it down and it is certainly too high. It has come down off its highs a year ago over the last year and we've made progress," said Secretary Yellen. "In part, that reflects what I meant at the time, that there were disturbances from the pandemic on supply chains that would eventually resolve and due to the President's efforts and the passage of time, those supply chain disturbances have largely resolved putting shipping costs down...”
“I believe the words you’re looking for are, “I’m sorry.”, said Congresswoman Miller.
Inflation remains above 6.4%, higher than the 5% rate when Yellen made her "transitory" comment.
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