Inflation continues to rise, pummeling consumers and raising serious concerns over the big spending agenda of President Joe Biden.
Personal consumption expenditures, a measure of changes in the prices paid by consumers for goods and services, increased 0.3% since last month and 4.4% since last year, the highest annual increase since 1991.
This is driven by at least a few factors. During the pandemic, consumers saved a record amount of money (2020 nearly doubled the rate of the previous high) and now they are spending with pent-up demand. Meanwhile, supply chain issues have created a scarcity of products.
Furthermore, compensation costs to businesses increased last year at the fastest rate since 2004, which on its face sounds great: higher compensation costs for businesses means higher compensation for employees.
But all of these factors are driving prices higher, and higher prices lead to employees asking for raises to meet the cost of living, which leads to employers giving more money, which leads to higher prices. And so on.
The massive cash infusions Congress gave earlier in the pandemic have also driven inflation, as predicted, especially as many people who did not need the money received it anyway.
With supply chain issues persisting and congressional Democrats set to pass another massive spending bill, inflation fears are also on the rise.
The Biden administration has tried to tamp down those fears, arguing inflation will come down in the second half of next year, while pushing a letter from some economists that the massive spending package Democrats are considering will ease inflation by building out “long-term economic capacity.”
We remain skeptical. So are the American people. A recent NBC News poll found that seven in 10 American adults, including nearly half of Democrats, think the nation is headed in the wrong direction, with most Americans viewing Biden’s handling of the economy negatively.
With inflation still rising, artificially pumping trillions of dollars into the economy could make the problem worse. We urge Congress to take a more measured approach. This is a time for fiscal discipline, not more profligacy.
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“The Biden administration has tried to tamp down those fears, arguing inflation will come down in the second half of next year,”,,,,,,,Baloney. Inflation was started when Biden closed the pipelines, shut down oil rigs from pumping on national lands and forced American energy producers to buy Middle East and Russian oil whose transportation costs and additional shipping pollution into the environment increased the cost of gasoline and heating fuel 80-100%. Since all American commerce requires transportation whose cost for fuel just skyrocketed, no prices will come down or stabilize with the Arabs and Soviets in charge of our energy. That giant sucking sound is your hard earned dollars going overseas in more worldwide socialist redistribution of American wealth to our self-declared enemies. The only fix is to go back to the Trump energy organized MAGA.
IF anything, inflation is GOING UP the 2nd half of this year!
And now piglosi has added a new paragraph to their stalled bill that creates a $1 trillion tax break for the wealthiest, a group of which her and her entire family belongs . So nice they are looking out for each other! When hell explodes I certainly hope their ashes don’t mess up my celebration plans.
The nation’s inflation crisis, which has been created by the egregious incompetence of the delusional, dishonest, divisive, and destructive Biden-Harris Administration, is just one of the crises America is facing. The administration has opened our southern border to unlimited, illegal immigration, targeted political opponents and parents who are concerned about the quality of their children’s education as domestic terrorists, made America dependent again on energy from both friendly and unfriendly foreign nations, created a massive supply chain backlog that is causing a shortage of many essential consumer products, compromised the effectiveness of our military by subjecting service members to highly divisive Critical Race Theory indoctrination, and greatly diminished America’s prestige with our allies and emboldened our enemies by conducting a disastrous, chaotic, and costly withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Afghanistan that resulted in the tragic deaths of thirteen service members. In just nine months, the reckless Biden-Harris Administration has managed to create multiple crises that constitute a serious threat to our Constitutional Republic, its economic prosperity, and the rights it guarantees to all citizens.
You’re Damn RIGHT, they created this mess..
inflation for us in flyover country but not for the political elite sounds like socialism for everyone but the socialist elite.
Or an outright citizen rebellion.
That would be nice to see..
Well, since the house passed the spending bill, i guess the inflation issue, DIDN’T do jack squat to halt their agenda.
The house would pass a bill to rid America of all republicans if they could just figure out how to word it. Oh they did, it’s called marking Americans as “domestic terrorists” when fighting for their childrens future.