Back in May, President Joe Biden published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal laying out his plans for fighting inflation (which was then running at 8.6 percent). (RELATED: Responding to Biden’s Toothless Inflation Plan)
Mr. Biden’s plan was really a dodge. He said the Federal Reserve “has a primary responsibility to control inflation.” That’s not entirely wrong – and make no mistake: the Fed’s inexcusable dithering on inflation will cost every one of us dearly over the months ahead.
But what substance Biden did attach to his inflation-fighting was utter nonsense, a hodgepodge of anti-business pieties soaked in progressive grievances. Blaming “Big Meat” for rising food prices was both laughable and yet very on-brand for Team Biden. (RELATED: Biden Spending Spree Makes This Thanksgiving the Most Expensive in History)
To be clear: there are some things a president can do to ease inflationary pressures – if said president wants to do so. As the Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl writes, Biden won’t do any of those things because it would irritate his base:
For instance, while President Biden is hiking tariffs, the Peterson Institute for International Economics calculates that even a 2-percentage point reduction in tariffs could lower inflation 1.3% and save $800 per household. Additionally, the president could trim inflation by reversing his expansion of Buy America laws as well as Davis-Bacon policies that raise the cost of government contracts. He could push to repeal the Jones Act that hikes shipping costs.
However, every one of those reforms would anger organized labor, and the self-described “most pro-union president in our history” has seemingly prioritized union endorsements over reducing inflation.
Other disinflationary policies rejected by the White House include: reversing the higher ethanol blend in gasoline that raises food prices (yet would anger many farmers and Iowa caucus voters), further encouraging domestic oil and gas production (environmentalists), reversing new environmental regulations raising infrastructure costs (environmentalists), resuming student loan payments (younger liberals), and paring back runaway spending (progressives).
To be fair, no president wants to irritate his base before a major election. That’s politics. But as Riedl notes, leaving the job of taming inflation to the Fed means the political class “may find themselves spending 2023 dealing with a recessionary crisis of their own making.”
Just in time for the 2024 presidential elections.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Norman Leahy has written about national and Virginia politics for more than 30 years with outlets ranging from The Washington Post to BearingDrift.com. A consulting writer, editor, recovering think tank executive and campaign operative, Norman lives in Virginia.
Come on man, you can’t expect anything to be the President’s fault….unless his name is Trump….then everything bad in the world is his fault and anything good was because of Democrat involvement
Biden is totally inept to run the country..he is actually RUINING our country!
Yep. That’s Brandon all over! His dominant reflex, one of his few remaining…
He just don’t care, China calls his decisions, they would have to approve what ever effects us, We have elected a bought and paid for Chinese pawn, why are we still sending our oil to communist China??? while Americans are hurting ???
I think Davos (WEF) calls the shots virtually everywhere. China is their “tool,” knowing that 90+ % of everything we buy is made there, and D.C. Elites have encouraged that (damn Nixon!). Besides, The Fed is NOT a federal agency! They can be TOLD what to do, but they’re a corporation, controlling currency and printing money. I don’t WANT to be “part of a global consortium! The Claus Schwabs and his buddies (Gates, Kerry, Cortez, Biden, et al.) just can’t handle an “Independent USA! I say, “Get Trump back behind the Resolute Desk and lock up the monkeys in the Guantanozoo.
so good to see and hear someone who knows the truth and is not afraid to tell it as so. THE TRUTH SHALL SET US FREE OF These ADMINISTRATIONS asap. THANK YOU. AND GOD BLESS YOU !
I really don’t see how we can survive another 2 plus years of this ECONOMIC MORON in the White House, plus the ECONOMIC MORONS in Congress. And then the Dem base seems to be flipping out over Newsome running for President! Heaven forbid. He might just make Biden look good.
WE CANNOT BUT THE POWERS BEHIND BIDEN IS MONEY POWER LIKE GEORGE SOROS, PELOSI, SCHUMER, SCHIFF, AND YES OBAMA., THE CATALYST BACK QUITE A FEW YEARS BACK, IN SENATE DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AND THEN BING BANG BOOM HE IS ELECTED PRESIDENT…NOW YOU KNOW WHY?? THIS HAS BEEN PLANNED USING BIDEN AS A PUPPET WHICH HE PLAYS SO WELL.
He should have never got us in this mess to begin with and he doesn’t know how to get us out of this situation. The only thing he knows how to do, just like all other Democrats is, spend money. Or more correctly, throw it away. That is how he figures to get us out.
🙂 THE TRUTH
eyeball, as crazy as your comments may sound outside of current context, within current context, you are dead on correct. I don’t get it at all, Shit is raining down and no one seems to care. Jerry Clowers once said in a joke, “Whoa, just shot up in here amongst us, one of us has to have some relief”, funny words, except when you apply them to the BS that is currently happening. God please save us.