October 14, 2022 |
The Consumer Price Index out yesterday, three weeks before the mid-term election, paints a picture of Americans being crushed by chronic, month-over-month, year over year inflation. In July of 2021, President Joe Biden – reading from a teleprompter – said the price increases that began shortly after he took over the White House six months earlier were transitory.
Prices have only soared higher since then—13.5 percent more on average since January of 2021. Yesterday’s report shows prices increases were up 8.2 percent from September last year to this year. The yearly core rate increased by 6.6 percent, its highest point since 1982, according to Thursday’s report The core rate does not include food or energy — two of the highest rising sectors of the economy.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is obviously not working and the president sounded agitated yesterday when he said the cost of living will get worse if voters kick Democrats out of Congress next month.
In a stunning assertion in his spontaneous remarks, Biden said he ran for president to fight inflation.
Inflation was never an issue in the 2020 election. The topic did not come up in campaign debates. Biden never mentioned it in speeches. Inflation was not on anybody’s radar. In 2019 the inflation rate in the U.S. was 2.29 percent and under 2 percent in 2018—the last two years of the Trump presidency.
Biden’s comments came as a Consumer Price Index report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Thursday showed prices have continued to rise on everything from energy and food to new vehicles and air travel, all despite the Biden admin’s purported efforts to combat inflation.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso scoffed at the idea that inflation is temporary or that Republicans could or would make it any worse. In a statement yesterday, Barasso said, “In under two years, Democrats have taken us from nonexistent inflation to a 40-year record high. Families are struggling under the Democrats’ radical agenda.”
While 8.2 percent is a big number, it only reflects the overall average of all goods and hides how inflation is damaging American households at the most basic levels. In terms of everyday necessities, the real line-item increases are staggering in the accumulative.
Eggs are up 30 percent, gasoline 18 percent, chicken 17 percent, milk 15 percent, bread, 14.7 percent, vegetables 9.2 percent and rent is up nearly 7 percent from last year.
Inflation is likely to get worse after the election no matter who wins. If OPEC proceeds with this week’s announcement to cut oil production after Biden’s failed summit with Saudi Arabia this summer, the result will increase prices at the pump. The resulting ripple effect will be felt throughout the economy.
