Biden's apologists try to downplay inflation worries by noting that they're largely confined to specific goods such as used cars. But the latest report shows inflation spreading to every sector of the economy, particularly where inflation can harm people of low income. Gasoline, for example, is up 42% from last year. Bacon, beef, pork, and eggs are all up by double digits. Children’s shows are up 12%; electricity 5%; rents 2.9%.
Inflation is outpacing hourly wage gains, which have risen 4.6% compared to inflation of 5.4%, which means real paychecks are falling, not rising, under Biden.
Maybe this is why voters tell pollsters they don't support making Biden’s cash giveaways to parents permanent. Voters are smarter than Democrats think. They know that despite what Democrats say, free money is not really free.
Even the Biden administration is forced occasionally to admit this. On a conference call with reporters about the nation’s supply chain crisis, Biden officials acknowledged that March's $1.9 trillion spending bill drove up prices and made matters worse.
But despite this admission, congressional Democrats are determined to pour $3.5 trillion worth of fiscal gasoline onto the inflation fire. The Biden administration even claimed in a report earlier this year that the best way to fight inflation was for the federal government to spend more money!
The White House Council of Economic Advisers report, titled “The Cost of Living in America: Helping Families Move Ahead,” claimed that the cost of living would fall because Washington would be doling out daycare subsidies. The thinking is that families would be better off despite inflation in other economic sectors.
This is innumerate. Inflation rises when more money chases fewer goods. With a supply chain crisis and COVID-related business restrictions, a sudden cash giveaway might be calculated to accelerate inflation.
Biden is making the same mistake about the $1.9 trillion. The supply of daycare cannot appear magically overnight to meet all the demand Biden’s spending will create. The daycare sector is highly regulated, and Biden is added yet more regulatory hurdles, so it will become harder to expand supply. By making more parents seek limited daycare slots, Biden’s subsidies will push their price up faster than inflation in the wider economy.
Instead of spending trillions more on highly regulated industries such as daycare, healthcare, and education, Biden would serve families better by removing regulatory barriers that make it so hard to increase capacity in these sectors.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...inflation-fire
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