President Joe Biden’s runaway inflation train continues hurtling out of control. The Labor Department reported on February 10th that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 7.5% in January compared to the CPI level a year ago – the highest rate of increase in four decades. Excluding gas and grocery prices, the core CPI measure increased 6%.
But not to worry, said Biden. “The fact is we’re in a situation now where you should have peace of mind,” Biden declared at an event he attended in Virginia on the same day that the spiraling CPI inflation increase was announced. Americans struggling to make ends meet every day, fill their gas tanks, and put food on the table would beg to differ. They do not have “peace of mind.
”Energy costs, for example, rose 27% over the past year, while the national average for a gallon of gas at the pump rose to $3.36 – a 38% increase from a year ago.
Food costs rose 7% and shelter costs rose 4.4% respectively over the past year. Electricity prices rose 10.7% over the same period.
A senior economist at Moody’s estimated that American households are now paying an average of $276 per month more on expenses such as groceries and gas because of the blistering pace of inflation. This is over $3000 of additional spending on an annual basis. Call it the Bidenflation tax, which falls particularly hard on low-and middle-income Americans.
As Americans reach deeper and deeper into their pockets to fill up their gas tanks, they have Biden and his fellow climate activist Democrats to blame.
The same thing holds true for the much higher prices that Americans are paying for everything from beef, poultry, and milk to shelter and cars. Biden signed the Democrats’ partisan $1.9 trillion so-called “COVID relief” legislation on March 11, 2021. Inflation was still under relative control at that time, despite many months of the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary policies. The Consumer Price Index rose 2.6 percent for the 12 months ending March 2021.
But after the influx of nearly $2 trillion into the economy as a result of the Democrats’ reckless spend-and-borrow programs, consumer demand surged way beyond what the nation’s resources could supply. Consumers spent enormously on goods, thanks to all the money the government was handing them, while supply chain constraints limited available supplies of goods for consumers to purchase. This misalignment of supply and demand triggered inflation’s upward climb to historic levels. Biden either didn’t see this coming or couldn’t care less.
The consumer price index rose 4.2 percent from April 2020 to April 2021 (the month after the passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending package). The CPI continued its steep climb thereafter.
When I last wrote about the soaring inflation rate two months ago, consumer prices had risen 6.8 percent from November 2020 to November 2021 – the fastest annual pace in 39 years. From December 2020 to December 2021, consumer prices rose 7 percent. And now with the latest 7.5 percent year-over-year CPI increase, this disturbing upward trend in the inflation rate is continuing into 2022. It all began after Biden and the Democrat-controlled Congress rammed through their reckless spend-and-borrow legislation. The U.S. national debt has now topped a record $30 trillion.