We saw earlier this week that consumer price index (CPI) numbers were up seven percent from the same time last year, the highest jump since 1982. Even CNN said, “Yikes!” in response.
Joe Biden’s response was a case study in delusion. “Today’s inflation numbers show a meaningful reduction in headline inflation over last month. We are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases,” Biden tweeted, contrary to all reality.
Unfortunately, now the Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers are also out. The PPI is a measure of wholesale prices for goods and services and they are an indicator of what will be happening to the CPI in the future. The numbers were not good, they jumped 9.7 percent from the prior year, near double-digit numbers, the biggest jump on record.
So was the White House’s response any better after the PPI than when the CPI numbers came out? No, they doubled down on the delusion. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki blamed Republicans.
Psaki doesn’t even seem to have any idea what she is saying. Um, Jen? The Democrats have complete control of the government, not the Republicans. You haven’t “unclogged the supply chains,” there are still about 100 ships stuck in the backlog at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach which is as high as it was last year. The Democrats haven’t passed the Build Back Better bill, one of Joe Biden’s many failures. But spending more with it would make inflation worse not better — another indication of how far from reality the Biden team is if they think it would make inflation better. It’s one of the reasons that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) refused to go along with it. The Republican proposal — to slow more spending that would increase inflation — would do more than anything the Biden team has done so far, given the spending is, at least in part, which has led to the spike in inflation.
This just shows how desperate the White House is if this is where Psaki is going. They don’t have a lot of options at this point. Joe Biden’s approval is circling the drain and going down fast, at only 33 percent approval according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, with Biden down across all categories and all groups. The empty shelves across the country are getting Biden tagged on Twitter with things like #BareShelvesBiden. And those bare shelves are hard for Joe Biden to get around, with stores looking like the old Soviet Union. Not a great look. They seem completely at sea as to how to deal with any of the issues.