If the Federal Reserve moves forward with a .75-point interest rate hike to shock the market, America is headed for "big trouble," Rep. Scott Fitzgerald warned on Newsmax Tuesday.
"There are some of us in Congress that remember either being in high school or our 20s and our parents had mortgages that were at 14%, 15%, 16%, 18%, and some in the late ’70s in excess of 20%, and it just meant that basically, you were caught up in this turnstile of continuing to pay high interest rates and never really knocking down that principal," the Wisconsin Republican said on Newsmax's "American Agenda." "If that's where America is headed right now, we're in big trouble."
Fitzgerald predicted that Republicans will benefit in the November election if that happens, but still, "we'll have our hands full trying to turn this economy around."
The Fed's original plans had centered around a half-point rise in June and another in July, but with inflation continuing to grow, it could, at this week's meeting, reveal a larger increase, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Americans are already hurting, said Fitzgerald, quoting a Moody's figure that said the average family is now paying about $460 more in their overall budget compared to a year ago.
"That's not something that some people, certainly that have a static income, can just absorb," he said.
The rising inflation is also causing Biden's own Democratic Party to fracture, said Fitzgerald.
"There are many members that I serve with right now that are not only trying to distance themselves from President Biden but are trying to come up with a new way of describing what's happening out there, and that's in lieu of actually coming up with some real solutions," he said. "There is a political problem before them now, and they're going to have to figure out a way of explaining that back in their districts."
Fitzgerald said that in his district, the main topic for discussion is, like elsewhere, the effects of inflation and the economy.
"There's still this ancillary discussion about Ukraine and what happened over there and what is continuing to go on over there, but overall, it's still very much about the economy," said Fitzgerald. "It's the price of gasoline and inflation. They can feel that their buying power is going away."
About NEWSMAX TV:
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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