This article originally appeared on National Review on February 16, 2022.
Our elected leaders must accept that inflation is a monster of their own making, and stop fanning the flames with ever-higher levels of government spending.
“Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man,” said Ronald Reagan, in 1978. Those words were right then, just as they are now. Today, that mugger is clobbering America much harder than it is the rest of the world, and we have only ourselves to blame.
With inflation clocking in at 7.5 percent in 2021, the highest rate in 40 years, the Biden administration is fond of pointing fingers at the pandemic. But that’s only part of the story — and the White House knows it.
If pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions and demand distortions were the only factors driving inflation, then inflation in the United States would be roughly on par with inflation in other developed economies, all of which are dealing with post-pandemic conditions. But it’s not. Inflation is significantly higher in the U.S. than it is in the U.K., Canada, or the European Union.
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