Bidenflation

Two weeks ago, “President” Joe Biden enjoyed a hearty chuckle when the host of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trevor Noah, made a “joke” about inflation causing the prices of everything to skyrocket under Biden’s watch. Yesterday, Chucklin’ Joe decided it was time to finally “get serious” about the issue of inflation that has been plaguing Americans since he took office.

“The buck stops here,” he said, staring steely-eyed straight into the camera. “I take full responsibility for the inflation caused by my harmful economic policies.”

Kidding. Of course he didn’t say that. No, instead, he found another group of people to blame: Republicans. No, really. Stop laughing.

In case you’ve had difficulty following the Biden blame game, let me review. First, he said inflation wasn’t happening. Our lying bank accounts were deceiving us. Then, he claimed that inflation was “transitory.” Then, he blamed the supply chain. Then he blamed “greedy corporations.” Then he blamed Putin. Now, it’s Republicans.

Larry Summers and Steven Rattner, who both served as economic advisors under the Obama/Biden administration, are both on the record stating the obvious: Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” was the primary driver of inflation. They warned that this massive and unnecessary spending bill would spark massive inflation and cripple our economy. Biden, and the Democrat congress, didn’t listen. They passed it anyway. The results were entirely predictable.

As always, Biden’s speech was an absolute trainwreck, filled with blatant lies, fudged statistics, and bumbling incoherence. Let’s dive right in.

Our plans and our policies have created the strongest economy in modern times. In addition, 8.3 million jobs my first 15 months in office. Record unemployment rate down 3.6%. Fastest decline in unemployment to start a presidential term ever recorded.

I have covered this talking point before. Bragging about “creating jobs” after your party spent the past two years killing 22 million jobs is ballsy, to say the least. This is like burning down your house, replacing it with a tool shed, and then bragging about all the construction work you’ve done.

Just to review, 152 million Americans were employed in January of 2020 before several (mostly-Democrat) governors decided to force millions of “non-essential” businesses in their states to close, allegedly with the brain-dead asinine belief that it would somehow stop a virus from spreading. It didn’t, of course. We now know that. But the forced closures did kill 22 million jobs in only three short months (among other calamities.)

Slowly, little-by-little, some governors graciously allowed businesses to reopen. (You may recall, those governors were mostly Republicans – all of whom were described as “literally killing people” for doing so.) By the time Whispering Joe took office in January of 2021, 13 million of those jobs had returned.

The latest jobs report shows a total of 151 million Americans now employed – which is still one million fewer than the number we had before the Democrats decided to destroy the economy and kill 22 million jobs. And yet, there was Lyin’ Joe yesterday, once again bragging about the “record jobs growth” caused by allowing people to get back to work after their jobs were killed. Bravo, Joe.

Our economy’s gone from being on the mend to on the move.

Inflation is crippling American households nationwide, at a 40-year-high of 8.5%. Wages increased 4.5% over the past year, but because of inflation, the real compensation rate dropped 3.7%. Gas prices hit a record high of $4.37 per gallon this week, and diesel prices are also at a record-high of $5.55 per gallon. Both rates will further drive inflation through the roof. Our GDP contracted 1.4% last quarter, signaling the beginning of a recession. The stock market lost a year’s worth of gains over the past few weeks, sending 401k’s and IRA’s into the toilet overnight.

But don’t worry. Joe says the economy is “on the move!”

I know that families across America are hurting because of inflation. I understand what it feels like. I come from a family where when the price of gas and food went up, we felt it, especially at the kitchen table.

Biden has an irritating habit of repeating lies that have already been debunked 1,000 times, and this is one of them. The price of gas barely increased at all during Biden’s youth. It was 27 cents per gallon in 1950 (when Joe was eight years old) and 31 cents in 1960 when he became an adult. He enjoys playing the fictional role of “Scranton Joe” from hardscrabble working-class roots. The truth is his family moved away from Scranton when Joe was ten years old and enjoyed a comfortable middle class living in the suburbs of Delaware.

There are two leading causes of inflation we’re seeing today. The first cause of inflation is a once-in-a-century pandemic. Not only did it shut down our global economy, but it threw the supply chain of command completely out of whack…This year we have a second cause: Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine. We saw in March that 60% of inflation was due to prices at the pump.

This is yet another lie he keeps repeating again and again. The inflation rate was 1.4% when Biden took office in January of 2021. By the time Putin invaded Ukraine in late February of 2022, that rate had exploded to 7.9%. Vladimir Putin had absolutely nothing to do with U.S. inflation. I don’t know a single person on the planet who believes this, and yet Biden keeps repeating this lie.

Likewise, blaming the “pandemic” for inflation is insulting to everyone’s intelligence. The pandemic didn’t cause our economic problems. The asinine reaction by Democrat governors, who shut down our schools and businesses for parts of two years, are entirely to blame for that. It is worth noting that the states that did not shut down for an extended period are doing far better in terms of employment and economic health than those that shut down for over a year.

As I have written here before, the primary cause of inflation is an expansion of monetary supply. That has been true throughout history, here and everywhere, and it is true today. How soon we forget that after ignoring his own economic advisors and printing another $1.9 trillion for his “American Rescue Plan,” Joe pushed hard to pass another multi-trillion-dollar “Build Back Better” bill that would have bankrupted the nation. He even made the painfully-ridiculous claim that the bill would somehow “reduce inflation.” The White House even published a letter signed by 56 economists to back this absurd claim. (Which was reminiscent of the letter signed by 51 “intelligence experts” who claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Russian disinformation.”)

The number one threat is the strength, and that strength that we’ve built is inflation.

I have no idea what this means. Joe’s brain is decaying so rapidly, it’s painful to watch.

My plan is to lower everyday costs for hard-working Americans and lower the deficit by asking large corporations and the wealthiest Americans to not engage in price-gouging and to pay their fair share in taxes.

First off, the deficit and taxes have absolutely zero – zero – relationship with inflation. Simply create a graph by plotting the inflation rate along with tax rates and deficit growth over time. Do you see any correlation? Of course not. Because they aren’t related in any way.

Secondly, there is zero – zero – relationship between the prices of goods and services and “wealth.” Corporations do not set their prices based on their revenue or profit margin. They set prices the same way they are set throughout the world, for all of human history: supply and demand. The idea that every American corporation decided en masse to raise prices out of sheer greed and “price gouging” is childish thinking. First, all it would take would be for one company to offer lower prices in order to gain the entire market share of that product. Second, raising prices does not automatically translate into greater profits. That is not how businesses operate, as anyone with a semblance of common sense could understand.

The Republican plan is to increase taxes on middle class families, let billionaires and large companies off the hook as they raise profits—prices and reap profits in record amounts.

In the history of the Republican Party, have you ever heard a single Republican call for higher taxes? As it turns out, this claim is based on Biden’s belief that Senator Rick Scott’s proposal to require all Americans to pay some amount of federal income tax (so that they have some “skin in the game”) is the stated position of the entire Republican Party. It isn’t, obviously. In fact, the highest-ranking Republican in the party, Sen. Mitch McConnell, has made it crystal clear that Scott’s proposal will never be part of his party’s agenda.

Meanwhile, nearly every Democrat in congress voted in favor of a “Build Back Better” bill that would have caused middle class taxes to explode. The bill included provisions that would have increased taxes for millions of middle class families, according to the nonpartisan CBO. The Democrats have also stated on the record that they will allow the Trump tax cuts to expire. When that happens, tax rates for middle class families will return to their pre-cut (i.e. higher) rates. The idea that Republicans want to raise taxes is pure projection.

As for “letting billionaires and large companies off the hook,” the Trump tax cut lowered tax rates for every tax bracket among the bottom 90%. Federal corporate tax revenue in 2021 reached a record-high of $372 billion. The wealthiest 10-percent of Americans pay over 70% of our total tax revenue – and that figure has increased every year for the past two decades. This notion that corporations and the wealthy aren’t already paying their fair share is born from pure fantasy.

(But again, I repeat, tax rates have absolutely nothing to do with inflation, anyway.)

First of all, [the Republican] plan is to give oil companies a free pass. For example, right now, oil companies are sitting on 9,000 unused leases – oil leases – which are [on] the property of the federal government.

I have covered this lie already before on this page, but just to reiterate, a lease is only the first step in the process. The federal government is deliberately holding up every other step in this process. This lie has been debunked countless times, and yet he keeps repeating it. It is maddening. The idea that oil companies are deciding not to drill oil…at a time when oil is in great demand and the profits from drilling have never been higher…is patently absurd.

Oh, and also, show me the Republican whose “plan” is to give oil companies “a free pass.” A free pass to do what? What would be the “plan” in that ridiculous scenario?

Republicans have offered plenty of blame, but not a single solution to actually bring down the energy prices.

Another ridiculous assertion. The Republican solution to energy prices hasn’t changed for decades: drill baby, drill! Biden’s very first act as president was to restrict the production of natural gas and oil. Executive Order #13990. Look it up. Hell, he campaigned on the idea of shutting down the fossil fuel industry! Are we seriously supposed to believe that his efforts to shut down that industry have had no impact on the price of oil and gas? How stupid does he think we are?

Under my plan, we’re on track to cut the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion this year. Let me say it again: $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. The biggest one-year decline in all of history for America.

This lie is so egregious that even CNN – CNN! – called him out for it. Our deficit is, in fact, $1.5 trillion lower in 2021 than it was in 2020…but not because of any of Joe’s policies. The deficit ballooned to over $3 trillion in 2020 because of all of the “emergency” spending that took place as a result of Democrat governors forcing business closures, killing 22 million jobs, and destroying our economy. That “emergency” spending had an expiration date – which was 2021. Those were automatic spending cuts that had nothing to do with Biden.

Also worth noting is the fact that the federal fiscal year begins on October 1st. So, Biden is claiming credit for a deficit reduction in fiscal year 2021…which began four months before he took office. As CNN points out, the deficit would have been reduced at a far greater rate if Biden hadn’t spent so much money on the “American Rescue Plan” in 2021. The FY21 deficit is “only” $1.4 trillion – which is still 44% above what it was in FY19 under Trump. This is like bragging that you’ve lost ten pounds after you’ve gain one hundred!

Look, I know you’ve got to be frustrated. I know. I can taste it.

He can taste it??

The first is, we’re in power. That’s the first thing. And you – justifiably right, we control all three branches of government.

Does Joe think the Democrats control the judicial branch of government? Or does he not know the three branches of our federal government? Either way, it’s disturbing.

At least he acknowledges that the Republicans – whom he blamed throughout his entire speech for the dilapidated state of our economy – have zero control over federal policy. They can craft any “plan” they’d like, but it would never pass through the House or Senate. It certainly wouldn’t be signed off by Joe. He and his party are entirely to blame, as they hold one hundred percent of the power.

I think our policies help, not hurt.

How, exactly, are Biden and the Democratic Party “helping” Americans right now? The economy is in the toilet. Our life’s savings are dwindling to nothing. Food prices are skyrocketing. Gas prices are through the roof. Hell, we can’t even find baby formula anywhere! How, exactly, have their policies “helped” anyone?

I’m not suggesting the American people can’t understand it. They understand it, but they have – you know, they’re working eight, ten hours a day just to put food on the table. And so, I think what’s happened is we have – in a sense, I never expected…let me say…let me say this carefully. I never expected the ultra-MAGA Republicans, who seem to control the Republican Party now, to have been able to control the Republican Party.

I don’t know what “ultra-MAGA” means. I’m not sure that anyone outside of Joe’s immediate inner circle understands what that means. Evidently, someone in that circle told him that “ultra-MAGA” was a thing, and that it’s really bad, and he should say it often. “MAGA” stands for “Make America Great Again.” Ultra-MAGA must mean “Make America Even Greater Again.” Is there anyone who disagrees with that sentiment? How is that supposed to be a bad thing?

Oh – and what do “ultra-MAGA” Republicans have to do with inflation or the struggles of the American people who can’t put food on the table?

After taking only five questions from the media, Biden did what he always does: turned his back and walked out of the room while the media shouted questions at his back. Nap time, I assume.