It's been more than four decades since we've seen inflation this bad.
Here is the truth, wrote our friend Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, it is Joe Biden’s unnecessary 2021, me too, COVID spending extravaganza which lit the inflation fire. It has been Joe Biden’s anti-fossil fuel policies which discourage domestic production and deny pipeline infrastructure to move oil and natural gas around the country which figuratively poured gasoline on that inflation fire. And it is his disastrous pro-Iranian, anti-Saudi and Israel, Middle East foreign policy which has turned the world’s largest producer of crude, Saudi Arabia, from allies on most things to at best disinterested observers, resulting in their unwillingness to increase the world’s oil supply.
Inflation climbed by 8.5% through March, according to the Consumer Price Index. The CPI is a key indicator of inflation, defined as the sustained rise in the cost of living. The increase marks inflation's fastest annual rise since December 1981. Core inflation, which measures all items minus food and gas, rose 6.5%. This kind of sustained and increased inflation may point to something more enduring, reported CNET's Marcos Cabello and Amanda Push.
According to today’s PPI release, price increases over the year in March included:
Automobiles: +121.2%
Home Heating Oil: +105.9%
Gasoline: +59.9%
Truck Transportation: +24.5%
Construction: +16.7%
Food: +16.2%
Senator Rick Scott released the Producer Price Index (PPI) chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which showed inflation continued to rise in March increasing 11.2% over the year, the largest annual increase since BLS started collecting PPI data.
While the BLS reports on inflation, CNET observed the Fed moderates inflation and employment rates by managing the supply of money and setting interest rates. Part of its mission is to keep average inflation at a steady 2% rate. It's a delicate balancing act, and the main lever it can pull is to adjust interest rates. In general, when interest rates are low, the economy and inflation grow. And when interest rates are high, the economy and inflation slow.
Translation: Get ready to be unemployed when the Fed “moderates” inflation by raising interest rates on business loans.
"If you think inflation is bad now at 8.5 percent, hold onto your hat,” said Mr. Manning. “The producer price index went up 1.4 percent in March alone. If that rate were to continue for an entire year, it would be a 16.8 percent increase on the cost of providing goods and services before profit and other costs are included. The Biden Presidency is leaving a mark on every American’s pocketbook unlike any president since Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. Unfortunately, the only answer offered by this failed administration is to blame Putin. What Joe Biden doesn’t seem to understand is that when you set the inflation house on fire and keep pouring gasoline on it through federal spending schemes, anti-energy policies and failed foreign policies, you don’t get to blame the guy down the street for fanning those flames you allowed to consume most of the house."
And the criticism isn’t coming from only conservatives. In a scorching statement issued yesterday Democrat Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia took down Biden's entire agenda.
"When will this end? It is a disservice to the American people to act as if inflation is a new phenomenon," Manchin said in a statement. "The Federal Reserve and the administration failed to act fast enough, and today's data is a snapshot in time of the consequences being felt across the country."
Manchin made clear that his frustration doesn't lie with "just one party," but his anger with his own party's leadership on their handling of inflation will not go unnoticed. He also threw cold water on additional federal spending and raised an alarm about the growing national debt.
Biden has been doing his best to blame the jump in prices on the Russian invasion of Ukraine by chirping “Putin’s Price Hikes” every time he sees a camera – it’s not going to work because Americans already know what causes inflation – Democrat spending and over-regulation.
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