Congress Owns Inflation In Mid-Terms

GOP & Dems are spinning the State of the Union on various fronts as mid-term elections approach but WSJ argues “It’s the Inflation, Stupid” as “main legacy of the 117th Congress” is a 3% loss in real wages & living standards… ”

The op ed is deflatingly blunt: “So much for the hope that inflation, once unleashed, would be easy to reduce. That mirage vanished Thursday with the September report that showed a rebound in prices form July & August.” Consider that food prices kept going up at a 0.8% clip or 11.2% over 12 months. Eating at home was more costly even than dining out since the grocer’s tab was 13% higher. “The worst news is that the so-called core index that excludes food & energy hit a 40-yr high, rising 6.6% over the past 12 months. Service prices (less energy services) accelerated & are up 6.7% in a year.” Then, there’s higher costs for apartment rents, airline fares, health insurance. Meanwhile, the average 30-yr mortgage rate hit a new 20-yr high of 6.92%, thereby pricing more buyers out of the market.

President Biden tried to put a “happy face” on the bad news & cited “some progress” in some areas. But, as the WSJ says, “You can’t drive your car on ‘some progress.’” But, let’s not dump this whole basket of rotten eggs on No. 46 alone. As the editors concluded: “Americans can blame inflation on Congress’s Covid spending blowouts, including the bipartisan &900 Billion in December 2020 & Democrats’ $1.9 trillion in March 2021.” The two parties’ politicking aside, “virulent inflation”, is the “main legacy of this Congress that has punished Americans. The election deserves to be a referendum on that record.”

Davd Soul