President Joe Biden, with his call for gas stations across the country to lower prices, is acting as an authoritarian while talking about price controls that could lead to shortages, former Rep. Ron Paul said on Newsmax, Tuesday.
"They think they know better than people making their own choices, and what he's talking about is price controls," Paul said on Newsmax's "American Agenda." "They think they know better than people making their own choices … when you price something below the market rate, what occurs is that you get shortages."
In this case, that would mean that "all of a sudden, they're going to go out and buy more oil to replenish it," said Paul, adding that he remembers what happened in 1971 when wage and price controls were enacted and shortages immediately occurred.
"As messy it is now, so far I've been able to go buy gasoline," Paul said. "You know the price is up a little bit. But that doesn't mean the price of the oil is up, and that's the only problem. That means the dollar value is going down."
Biden blames Russia, gas companies, and more over the inflation, and Paul said that "some of it is pure political gain, and they're playing these tricks."
Paul recalled that the Federal Reserve got its power during the Great Depression, and said people should look more into that power, as "it's a deadness that's causing the problem and they accommodate everybody."
Paul also agreed that the only thing that worked in the 1970s to curb inflation was for the Fed to raise interest and flip the U.S. into a recession, but "that would be difficult politically right at this moment to do. "
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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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