Politicians are infamous for trying to cast blame on others. President Joe Biden’s attempt to shift the blame for America’s latest inflation surge onto Vladimir Putin, however, is laughable. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported inflation for the last 12 months at a troublesome 7.9%. Last month, before the Ukraine invasion, inflation came in at 7.5%.
Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell share the blame for the highest inflation numbers in 40 years. Biden advanced $2 trillion worth of unnecessary spending in 2021, even though the economy already started bouncing back after the pandemic hit in 2020. Powell facilitated lots of so-called “easy money” by accommodating the government’s spending spree and buying billions worth of U.S. bonds every month, even as inflation numbers got hotter and hotter.
Putin is an evil and dangerous dictator, but Biden’s reckless spending spree and war on fossil fuels has led to a nearly 40% increase in gasoline prices since he became president. Used car prices are increasing for the first time in memory. Rent rates shot up 14% year over year in December, long before the Ukraine invasion.
Real wages have unfortunately fallen nine out of the last 12 months, so low-income workers are particularly hurting from the higher prices at the grocery store and the gas pump. If Biden wants to help American workers, then he should stop complaining about Putin, ask American energy producers to get humming and tell Jerome Powell to stop printing money.