Inflation has eased a little bit for Americans but prices are still well above where they were a year ago. 

According to the US Consumer Price Index, all items rose by 6-percent over the last 12 months, which has slowly declined from the pandemic peak. US Representative for Iowa’s Third Congressional District Zach Nunn, who is on the House Financial Services Committee, says he has pushed for lowering input cost along with making domestic energy a priority to reduce inflation for Iowans. 

“Congress has already passed a bill that would make sure that we protect our strategic petroleum reserve, that we are buying energy domestically and that we’re standing up to countries like China that are directly competing with us in areas that are American made jobs produced here domestically.”

Nunn says that some leaders on the House Financial Services Committee want to see an interest rate hike to see the inflation rate go down. He says this is a desperate action to take. 

“Here’s my concern.  two years ago, we were at basically zero interest rate. And now we’ve almost increased that by 600%. That’s a dangerous situation to be in when we’re ratcheting up the inflation or when we’re ratcheting up interest rates to try and drive down inflation. But it’s having very little effect.”

Nunn explains that raising interest rates will have an effect on anyone who wants to buy a first home when they’re looking at a mortgage rate.