Presidentish Joe Biden and his Treasury Secretary show a dangerous denial about inflation, according to a pair of stories — and one very bad poll.
ASIDE: Man, I hate to keep writing about this, but a lot less than I like trying to buy a couple of steaks or fill up the tank.
On Friday, Biden claimed that inflation is a “real bump in the road” but that he expects the situation to “change sooner, quicker, more rapidly than most people think.”
He argued that “supply chain dysfunction, not government spending,” was to blame, as a Washington Post report summed it up.
What’s your Secretary of Transportation doing about it, Joe?
Oh, right: Buttigieg Walks Back His ‘Racist’ Infrastructure Remark — Sorta.
Supply-chain issues that the administration has ignored all year are to blame, but Democrat out-of-control spending has nothing to do with it.
“Inflation,” as Milton Friedman taught us, “is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” no matter what our Denier-in-Chief might think.
Related: Joe Biden, Milton Friedman, and the Tyranny of Tiny Minds
It wasn’t even two weeks ago that SecTreas Janet Yellen finally admitted that it was time to stop calling the inflation problem “transitory.”
I was going to give her credit for that at the time, based on the headline. But then I got into the meat of the story.
Speaking at a Reuters event, Yellen said, “Now the new variant, the Omicron variant — the pandemic could be with us for quite some time and hopefully not completely stifling economic activity, but affecting our behavior in ways that contribute to inflation.”
Omicron is to blame for inflation. Not printing up a trillion or so dollars in funny money, not the Fed propping up securities and super-heating the economy, not Biden paying people not to work, not the “stimulus.”
A virus that, to date, has killed maybe one person anywhere in the world.
Normally, a politician saying something 100% contrary to what you can plainly see with your own eyes is just par for the course. I’d hold them accountable for the lie, but just because a politician is in public denial doesn’t mean they aren’t quietly changing course behind the scenes.
But, no. Biden and Yellen remain fully committed to a FIVE TRILLION DOLLAR “Build Back Better” agenda, THREE TRILLION of which would consist of funny money.
How many trillions do Biden and Yellen have to print before they recognize that they’re causing inflation?
All the denial is hitting Biden right where it counts: In the polls:
An ABC/IPSOS poll released Sunday found that 57% of Americans surveyed disapprove of Biden’s economic policies, especially as they pertain to rising inflation.
The ABC/IPSOS poll suggests that discontent is largely driven by the inflation issue, with 69% of those surveyed saying they disapprove of how the president is dealing with it.
Notably, 71% of Independent voters disapprove of Biden’s handling inflation.
From the same story: “A newly released poll from the Trafalgar group found that the majority of Americans do not believe Biden is taking the issue seriously enough.”
Well, they’re right.
