WASHINGTON, DC, Nov 12 — You don’t need to read a newspaper to know that the prices of everything from groceries to gasoline have been steadily skyrocketing since he took office, thanks to President Biden’s mismanagement. That’s not an observation coming from a disgruntled Republican; it’s what Democratic economist Larry Summers, who served as President Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury and President Obama’s National Economic Council chairman, had to say in an interview with CNN.
“I think that the policymakers in Washington, unfortunately, have almost every month been behind the curve. They said it was transitory. It doesn’t look so transitory. They said it was due to a few specific factors. It doesn’t look to be a few specific factors. They said when September came and people went back to school that the labor force would grow. And it didn’t happen,” Summers said.
The fact of the matter is that inflation hasn’t been as bad as it is today for three decades. So, what does Mr. Biden do to alleviate the pain? He directs his National Economic Council to help alleviate the rising cost of energy — gasoline and heating oil — which has been leading the inflation surge. Duh? He’s the guy who shut down the Keystone XL pipeline and who has been at war with the petroleum industry, in general. His policies have caused the price of a gallon of gas for your car to soar to a seven-year high, and the Energy Information Administration warns that the cost of heating oil is expected to rise approximately 43% compared to last year. Bear in mind that the higher cost of transporting goods adds to the price you have to pay for them if and when they reach a local store.
Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute (API) told Fox News that “when the administration is continually putting forward new proposals to limit production in the United States, American oil and gas companies are cutting back on production. We have been able to limit the amount of dependence that we’ve had on foreign countries for our oil and gas over the course of the last decade … we need to continue development in the United States, rather than being dependent on other countries for American energy.”
But inflation has been soaring for all manner of goods since Mr. Biden’s inauguration, and it seems that they’ll only get pricier as the months go by. That’s one of the things that renegade Democrat Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia thinks. He blames his party’s unabashed spending spree for the nation’s economic predicament.
In an Opinion Article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal, Manchin vented his concern, saying: “An overheating economy has imposed a costly ‘inflation tax’ on every middle- and working-class American. At $28.7 trillion and growing, the nation’s debt has reached record levels. Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent more than $5 trillion responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Now Democratic congressional leaders propose to pass the largest single spending bill in history with no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt or the inevitability of future crises. Ignoring the fiscal consequences of our policy choices will create a disastrous future for the next generation of Americans.” [Not to mention the current generation.]
To make matters worse, as we approach the holiday season is the supply chain debacle. The backlog of products en route to outlets has slowed to a snail’s pace. So, even if you could afford the higher cost of food, presents and the necessary accouterments the season calls for, many products might just be unavailable even if you have the money to afford them.
The administration tells us that they’re “working on it,” as the saying goes. But what White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in response to a progress report, she was not very reassuring. She sheepishly told reporters that: “I can’t make a prediction for you that we’re going to solve every issue tomorrow and next week; we’re not.”
John Grimaldi served on the first non-partisan communications department in the New York State Assembly and is a founding member of the Board of Directors of Priva Technologies, Inc. He has served for more than thirty years as a Trustee of Daytop Village Foundation, which oversees a worldwide drug rehabilitation network.
Let’s see if Sen. Manchin can follow up on his rhetoric by voting against the highly inflationary bills when they reach the Senate. The D party left him a long time ago; it’s time he left it.