David Catron of the American Spectator ties today’s inflation to President Biden’s pursuit of bad policies.
When the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation had risen at an annual rate of 8.3 percent in April, the White House and many news outlets made much of the minuscule decrease from the 8.5 percent rate reported for March. President Biden issued a statement, for example, that called the infinitesimal decline “heartening.” CNN ran a story titled, “US inflation slowed last month for the first time since August.” This wasn’t terribly comforting, however, considering that the inflation rate has nearly doubled since last April while real wages declined by 2.6 percent.
Nor is it “heartening” to see that Biden is still in denial about the role his administration’s spending has played in igniting inflation. Here’s a typically delusional claim he made last week in response to a reporter’s question concerning how much responsibility he accepts for the inflation spike: “I think our policies help, not hurt.… Economists think that this is going to be a real tough problem to solve, but it’s not because of spending.” That claim conflicts with the opinions of most economists, including progressives like Obama economic advisor Steven Rattner. …
… He still insists, for example, that high inflation in our country is symptomatic of a global trend. However, … this is fiction. A rational president would have stopped peddling this whopper months ago, when the Federal Reserve compared the core inflation rate in the U.S. to the rates experienced in other OECD nations and concluded,“The United States is experiencing higher rates of inflation than other advanced economies.” …
… As out of touch as Biden is about the causes of inflation, his plan to fix the problem is even more delusional. Predictably, one of its major features involves tax increases.
