Biden faces inflation fiasco – but won’t admit he caused it

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It’s quite a sight to see people crediting Democrats with every job created and every percentage point gained in economic growth, suddenly claiming that the White House is completely helpless in the face of our current economic situation.

Presidents typically receive far too much credit and / or blame for our fortunes, but they can certainly exacerbate existing problems. And our political class has surely infuriated them with unbridled spending and support for policies that discourage work and inhibit energy production.

Wholesale prices rose 8.6% from a year ago in October, another record annual gain and the largest increase in more than a decade. Inflation has reached 6.2%, the highest annualized inflation rate since the 1990s. Whereas voters were once promised “transient” inflation, today economists warn that we will be there to help. some time.

“Reversing this trend is a top priority for me,” President Joe Biden said on November 10, after his team spent months dismissing inflation as a “high class” and short-term situation: – no serious economist, ”the president himself said in July.

Biden National Economic Council deputy director Brian Deese had argued that inflation was in fact a good thing, and the whole administration had put forward the idea that the best prescription for easing inflation was bigger, incremental spending – part of a wider tendency for Democrats to say utterly absurd things. on the economy.

Democrats have seriously underestimated the frustration voters, unable to get what they want almost instantly, will feel, as White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki jokes about channel issues supply, “the tragedy of the delayed conveyor belt”. And the price increase?

President Joe Biden has no solution to the country’s lingering supply chain problems, but certainly has no problem spending trillions on welfare programs.
AP Photo / Noah Berger

Last week, liberal pundits spent a day mocking a mother of nine in Texas who complained about rising milk prices on CNN. I’m not sure if Krista Stotler had all of her stats fully correct, but I suspect most voters don’t really care about pricing. Inflation is something they feel.

Inflation is the biggest topic in politics right now, bigger than even the education issue that helped sink Democrats in Virginia. It is difficult to get out of a wealth-destroying tax. There is no one to accuse of racism. No Donald Trump to blame. Adjusting for inflation, real average hourly earnings, for example, have declined over the past year. And all Democrats want to do is spend more money – a lot.

Last week, Democrats, with the help of some Republicans, approved another more than $ 1 trillion infrastructure bill, even as they push through an unprecedented reconciliation bill from several billion dollars. This all comes after $ 6 trillion in spending deficit during the pandemic, which many Democrats said was not even enough.

Meanwhile, a third of recent increases in inflation have been propelled by energy prices, which soared 6.7%. Biden advocates such as Paul Krugman, who have no qualms about blaming Republican governors for the seasonal variations in the spread of viruses, argue the president has no control over gas prices. Well, the first thing Biden did was freeze new oil and gas leases and shut down future pipelines. He is now begging OPEC to increase production and help bring down global gas prices, but his domestic policy goals and actions run counter to that position. Virtually all existing “green” plans, through mandates, bans or taxes or artificial “markets”, will intentionally make fossil fuels more expensive or reduce their use. Expensive gas is their goal. So how can Democrats credibly maintain that they have a plan to stop the price hike?

A sign displays the price of a gallon of gasoline at a gas station in the Borough of Staten Island in New York, New York, the United States, Nov. 10, 2021.
President Joe Biden is forcing Americans to pay high gas prices after canceling pipeline projects like the Keystone XL pipeline.
EPA / JUSTIN LANE

On top of all this, Democrats continue to push for a major expansion of the welfare state in a tight labor market. This is reminiscent of their insistence that unemployment insurance be expanded even after the pandemic has ebbed. Biden’s spending plan includes programs that discourage work. Typically, Democrats institute massive “safety net” programs in times of recession, not growth. There are more jobs than job seekers in the country.

It is true that governments have caused much of the demand shock we are experiencing, unnecessarily shutting down entire economies during the pandemic. Yet the Democrats allowed their vehement ideological wing to take control of the party, exacerbating these underlying tendencies. Why the senses. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (or Biden, once considered a moderate himself) would follow progressives into this logic-defying quagmire – not only economic but political.

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