Daniel Hornung, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, said in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday that “we certainly continue to see progress on inflation,” but added that “there was some seasonality in January and February.” I expected there to be,” he said. I didn’t expect the progress to be linear. ”
Hornung said: [relevant remarks begin around 3:30] “I don’t comment on monetary policy or the Federal Reserve. All I can say is that if you step back and think about it, inflation has continued to decline from a peak of 9% to around 3%. I always think that. But we expected some seasonality in January and February. We didn’t expect the progress to continue in a straight line. But looking at what we’ve seen from the CPI and PPI, So, as we look to the core PCE in February, I think we can expect continued progress in terms of core annual inflation. And from the president’s perspective, as we saw in the State of the Union address, I think we can expect continued progress in terms of core annual inflation. I think the focus will continue to be on continuing to make it clear to the American people that we have a set of plans to reduce costs for businesses and consumers. It’s a stark contrast to Congressional Republicans, who are focused on other issues such as tax cuts for the wealthy.”
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