By Post Editorial Board, January 13, 2022
It’s been four decades since consumers got slammed this hard, yet President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats — whose policies fueled inflation in the first place — are only pushing to make things worse.
The Consumer Price Index shot up yet again in December: 0.5 percent for the month, this time. That puts yearly inflation at 7 percent, the highest since mid-1982.
It’s also the seventh straight month it’s topped 5 percent, all after Biden dismissed the early trouble signs as “transitory.”
Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell said the same, but no longer: On Tuesday, he called inflation a “severe threat” to the economy and admits upward price pressures will persist well into the year.
Costs are up for everything: food, energy, vehicles, shelter, transportation, clothing . . . Gasoline and fuel oil were nearly 50 percent more in December, with some stations charging a crazy $6-plus a gallon. Used-car and -truck prices rose 37 percent.
And take-home pay hasn’t kept up: Inflation-adjusted hourly earnings were 2.4 percent less than a year earlier in December.
The prez and his party can no longer escape blame for the Bidenflation Tax, which hits poorer Americans hardest. Despite warnings (from even their own party mates, like former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers), Dems last year unilaterally pumped $1.9 trillion into an economy that was already rebounding, paid workers bonuses to stay off the job and did little to address predictable supply-chain clogs. The Fed, meanwhile, kept interest rates low and continued to bloat the money supply by buying up bonds, to the tune of $120 billion a month.
Biden’s “solution”: Blame business for passing along cost increases, claiming that a host of antitrust actions can somehow stop the price hikes. Oh, and also insist his Build Back Better scheme would address inflation, too. Hah! That plan to infuse another $5 trillion into the economy would only spur more inflation.
Economists know several ways to stem inflation: cut government spending, raise interest rates, tighten the money supply. But Democrats need to stop doing the same thing over and over again — i.e., spending more money — and expecting different results. That’s the definition of insanity, unless they actually want more inflation.