As most of us know, inflation has become one of the most pressing issues in American politics today. Gas prices have never been higher. Grocery shopping brings tears to the eyes. Don’t even bother trying to buy a car right now.
Amid this turmoil, many of us have turned to our politicians wondering what they are saying about it, and what their solutions and goals for the future are. However, politicians only seem to point fingers at one thing or another. No solutions are proposed and, if they are, the opposition always seems to accuse the solution of feeding into the problem.
For Republicans, the smoking gun of inflation seems to be government spending — particularly by the Biden administration. While that seems awfully convenient for a political party hell-bent on never spending a dime to support Americans, blaming government spending is resonating with quite a few people — and it’s not necessarily wrong. The government has spent a lot of money over the past few years on vaccine research, stimulus checks and massive infrastructure projects, to name a few. These have artificially increased the amount of money people can spend at the same time that supply is dropping sharply for all sorts of goods and services.
For Democrats, corporate greed and the “Putin” tax are to blame for our current inflation. They believe that corporations are taking advantage of COVID-19 precautionary measures and the global shipping crisis to raise their prices beyond what is necessary. According to Fortune, corporate profits “soared 37% year over year, more than any other time since the Fed began tracking profits in 1948.”
On top of that, the war in Ukraine has shrunk global supplies of oil and grain and has increased tensions with one of the world’s leading exporters, China. The combination of these two situations, Democrats claim, has caused the current inflation crisis we are experiencing now.
The reality is that both sides are partially correct. Ubiquitous government spending can increase inflation if spent poorly and there is no denying that price gouging is occurring all while shipping crises and wars have shrunk supplies of goods. But being partially correct simply won’t cut it.
Normally, I’d be hypercritical of Republicans for pointing fingers at the Biden administration while not proposing any solutions of their own. But their solution to cut government spending, however faulty I think it is, lines up with their complaints and I can’t fault them for that. On the other side, Democrats are complaining about corporate price gouging and a lack of industrial production while having complete control over Congress and the White House.
When your party is in power and you repeatedly identify a problem, the onus is on you to do something about it. And beyond a few temporary fixes such as the baby formula shortage and opening the strategic reserve, nothing has happened thus far. Instead, Democrats have continued to focus on cultural issues in hopes of convincing their base to show up for midterm elections. What seems to be the message from the Biden camp is that the economy is stronger than ever, so we just need to trust the Fed’s ability to control the money supply.
Their messaging does very little to assure the American people that supply will rise soon. Instead, they’ve taken the route of suppressing demand, something that could be harmful for Americans in the short term if done recklessly.
Democrats’ inability to fully address inflation on the Congress floor has come back to bite them at times. Pivotal actions proposed by Senate Democrats to address climate change were nearly struck down completely when Senator Joe Manchin cited concerns over its effect on economic recovery and the high costs of infrastructure development. Family leave and healthcare expansion for veterans dealing with chronic illnesses developed from burn pit exposure have faced opposition from Republicans with concerns over government spending.
All these concerns, while certainly overplayed by Republicans, are legitimate and are indicative of a problem for Biden. He has not addressed inflation much at all, despite assurances and promises of action. He’s losing the debate on inflation simply because he has not taken action.
Democrats made the erroneous decision to focus on cultural issues to rile up their base. Because of this, they’ve now weakened their position going into midterm elections by exemplifying their inability to address one of the worst periods of inflation in 40 years despite being in control. Their failures have led to stagnation in cultural policy as Republicans continually voice their fiscal concerns. Democrats need to address inflation before the crisis entirely stagnates progress economically and culturally for the United States.
