LETTER: The bumbling Biden administration
June 17, 2022 - 9:00 pm
The Biden administration tells Americans that they’re responsible for the record-high inflation. Consumer demand outpacing the supply of goods and services. Corporations not paying their fair share of taxes. Putin for the Ukraine invasion. Really?
News flash: Government — more specifically, Washington, D.C. — is responsible for inflation. So much so, one particular agency (Federal Reserve) was established at the turn of the 20th century to combat it. But it’s failed numerous times to do its job. Why? It’s too political.
Here’s what the government can do if it’s serious (and so far, it hasn’t been): Fast-track the Keystone XL Pipeline, deregulate oil/gas permits and work cooperatively with big American oil and gas producers to get energy prices down rather than groveling to foreign oil-producing countries to produce more.
As a college freshman, I took a course in economics and learned that the causes of inflation are: government printing/circulating too much money and government spending/borrowing more money than it takes in in tax revenue, causing interest rates to rise (which causes a recession).
Paul Samuelson wrote the textbook, which is still available for puchase online. If I thought it would assist them, I would gift copies to the president, vice president, Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell. But alas, I don’t think it would.