FIRST-YEAR LAME DUCK: CBS/YouGov Poll Sweeps the Legs out From Under Biden.

The poll found that a huge majority of Americans believed he wasn’t sufficiently focused on the economy (58 percent) and inflation (65 percent). Only 38 percent approved of his handling of the economy, while a whopping 62 percent disapproved. It’s even worse when it comes to inflation — 30 percent approval, 70 percent disapproval. He’s about to dip into the twenties on the approval of his handling of inflation.

If he thinks their opinion is going to go up if he was able to raise the Build Back Better bill back up from the dead, the answer is no, it wouldn’t. The poll showed that that wouldn’t help him at all: 76 percent said no, their opinion of him wouldn’t improve if he was able to pass the BBB bill. The poll indicated that what they want is a change in inflation, and their opinion of him might improve if he were to do that.

But the problem is inflation is made worse by government spending, which is all Biden has been focused upon. So, what he needs to do to change Americans’ opinion of him is contrary to the Democrats’ massive spending dreams and what they want him to do.

At this point it will almost certainly require a Fed-engineered recession to tame inflation, something Biden doesn’t have the stomach for — even if he did still have the political clout to back the Fed.

And I’m not sure the Fed has the stomach to raise rates, given that overall employment is still down millions of jobs from its pre-lockdown high.