When inflation started ticking up after Biden took office, he quickly blamed anyone and anything else. He blamed Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Big Oil, and none of those scapegoats worked. Then there was the classic prediction that inflation would be transitory.
Oops, it clearly wasn’t. On to the next narrative!
I’m not sure who advised him to do this, but he then tried to convince the public that the economy was actually in good shape and started touting the successes of “Bidenomics.” Not surprisingly, that didn’t work either. Telling people that everything is better under Biden when people can still clearly remember that prices were lower and conditions were generally better under Trump isn’t a winning strategy.
So what’s next? How do you improve your poll numbers on the economy after you’ve already taken ownership of it? You need another scapegoat. And Team Biden has decided to push the narrative that corporations are driving inflation and that if only they would cut prices, things would be even better.
“Today, we learned that annual inflation fell to its lowest level since March 2021 and monthly inflation was zero,” Biden noted in a statement released Thursday. “Alongside yesterday’s news that our economy grew by more than 5% last quarter, this flat inflation is helping deliver the breathing room families need right now, especially around the holidays. Our actions have mended supply chains and helped bring inflation down to its lowest level in two years."
"But we still have more work to do: prices are still too high for too many families," he continued. "That’s why I’m fighting every single day and calling on corporations to lower costs for middle-class families, even as Republicans in Congress focus on lowering taxes for the wealthy and largest corporations.”
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Biden doubled down on this rhetoric in a post on X/Twitter, pretending to be a tough guy and accusing corporations of price gouging.
“Let me be clear to any corporation that hasn’t brought their prices back down even as inflation has come down: It’s time to stop the price gouging,” the post reads. “Give American consumers a break.”
It’s not uncommon for a president to take credit for anything good that happens on his watch and blame others for anything bad, but clearly, Joe Biden doesn’t understand economics.
For starters, inflation is not down. The rate of inflation has slowed, but prices haven’t returned to what they were under Trump. Gas prices are also still up.
“The all items index rose 3.2 percent for the 12 months ending October, a smaller increase than the 3.7-percent increase for the 12 months ending September,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics noted earlier this month. “The all items less food and energy index rose 4.0 percent over the last 12 months, its smallest 12-month change since the period ending in September 2021. The energy index decreased 4.5 percent for the 12 months ending October, and the food index increased 3.3 percent over the last year.”
According to the CPI Inflation Calculator on the BLS website, prices are 18% higher now than when Biden took office. But sure, Joe, corporations should just lower prices to Trump-era levels because you say so. Because that’s how it all works, right? Clearly he doesn’t understand economics, but then again, what leftist does?
