Did the White House stumble across some bad polling making them feel like the “ignore it” defense wasn’t working against inflation any longer?
But, you say, they passed the Inflation Reduction Act to sound like they’re serious about reducing inflation. Everyone, including the Biden administration and voters, knew that legislation has zero to do with taming inflation.
Biden’s tune changed this week and suddenly he sounds like President Empathy once again instead of President Unity.
Care to explain inflation in your terms, Mr. President?
Here’s the transcript of Biden’s stumbling remarks as they made their way out of his mouth like college students leaving a bar at 3 am:
I’m directing members of the council to sharpen their focus — sharpen their focus in lowering the costs for families. Because what’s inflation? Inflation is, at the end of the month, do you have less money from your paycheck or more money in your paycheck?
I mean, the way that people — is how it’s calculated by the vast majority of American people. And so we got to lower costs for families.
And this isn’t some — just some abstract goal, because the problem isn’t just theoretical. Like many of you, I grew up in a family where when the price of gasoline went up, it was a conversation at the breakfast table. It was a conversation that they — for real.
It’s as if Biden was literally just informed about inflation earlier this morning. Where has he been since 2021 when gas, groceries, and everything else started on a skyward trajectory and never looked back? Oh right, ignoring and downplaying the problem.
Now he’s saying the inflation crisis is real and it means people have less money in their paychecks since it’s getting eaten by rising costs. That’s not what inflation is but it’s the way Biden understood it after he heard someone explain something about money on the way to the ice cream shop.
This about-face has to be driven by some perceived weakness that maybe Biden hasn’t turned the corner after all with the voting public. No one outside the Biden inner circle ever believed that to be true, the fundamentals haven’t changed and inflation hasn’t reversed course.
Perhaps it’s the latest round of polling from various Senate races where Democrats aren’t looking as strong as they did even just a few weeks ago. Perhaps it’s the continued drumbeat on inflation from economists or the tanking stock market. Whatever it is, Biden sounded as if there’s actually a problem to be dealt with rather than extolling the virtues of the electric vehicle tax credits to people having trouble affording eggs and milk.
The reason people feel like there’s less money in their paychecks is that Biden’s inflation is making everything so darn expensive. The same paycheck doesn’t buy today what it bought six or even three months ago.
Keep swinging, Joe, maybe someday you’ll connect.
