I knew you’d say that. You just cannot give Republicans credit for anything.
But what we all know is it was the Democrats who got us into this mess. Handout after handout and all they did was put us more into a hole. This student debt insanity is another of those steps.
The biggest mistake was shutting down the Keystone pipeline on day 1 of Biden’s presidency. Stopping drilling and fracking was a terrible decision. He took us from energy independent to now having little even left in our strategic petroleum reserve. Releasing those supplies was a very bad idea. Saudis and OPEC immediately set themselves in a position to take advantage of our needs.
If Biden had not gone that way, we would be supplying energy to our Allies who are badly affected by this Russian/Ukraine war.
Say whatever you want about Republicans but they had better sense than this.
Also building a wall and closing the border was absolutely the right decision. Yet Biden stopped that too on Day 1. Look at what his policies are costing us now.
Can you please report facts for a change. Social media sites put you to shame. It’s not about Dems vs Reps, it’s about right vs wrong. Facts!
4
@Theresa’s
Since you appear factually challenged I will remind you of two things:
1) the current inflation is GLOBAL, so you cannot blame that on the Dems
2) the biggest handout by far, to date, was TRUMP's multi-trillion tax break for himself, the 1% and corporate America
41
No surprise the NY Times turns to the same "experts" who told us inflation would be transitory to bash Republican common sense plans for reducing inflation.
1) Reopen U.S. energy production
2) Fiscal discipline around government spending
3) Crackdown on unions taking our logistics hostage in an "emergency"
4) Incentivize agricultural production with minimum price guarantees
5) reduce tariffs on foreign agricultural goods
6) cut red tape and encourage investment in housing
If Democrats didn't hate our energy sector, farmers in Red States and our truck drivers in favor of union dockworkers, we'd already be halfway home on reducing inflation.
We will get there, it may just take until we get a new President in 2025.
1
I hear his out of the President and his party; We are fighting inflation but also pushing CRT, We are fighting inflation but pushing the BLM agenda, we are fighting inflation but pushing equity policies that take money from your pocket book, we are fighting inflation but pushing for criminals to be free on the streets, we are fighting inflation but pushing gender reassignment surgery. We get the picture, you have an agenda and it is not fighting for inflation.
1
@John Zotto why would anyone fight "for" inflation?
12
@John Zotto, you aren’t hearing that from the president and his party. You’re hearing it from their opponents.
18
@GLMann, oddly enough, I have read claims from people on the right that inflation serves some mysterious yet nefarious goals of the Democratic Party.
12
Like it or not, there are far greater forces at work than are immediately witnessed by Americans. Inertia is indeed one of them.
See the World Economic Forum in Davos, which was attended by Gore, Kerry, Kissinger and many other world leaders.
www.weforum.org
Exclusive of whether one's addressing manufacturing, agricultural, or service economies backed by gold or fiat currency, the reinforcement of the Banking World began just after WWII at Bretton Woods.
Cut the pablum and conjecture. Get smart and go back to work.
5
Republicans love Hungary and wants America to be like Hungary. Inflation is 20 percent in Hungary.
Allow Republicans to take over, and that's what we will get. They say it themselves.
Pretty simple math.
16
The Dems should promote a "bubble up" economy and eliminate the income tax on social security. The elderly are already bearing the burden of unemployed or underemployed adult children living at home and no dependents tax deduction.
8
If everyone knows the game, why are Republicans ahead in the poles? The answers are disturbingly obvious.
Perhaps Republican voters that are neither billionaires or minorities are intellectually challenged. So what. I’m sick of suffering under the thumbs of the ignorant zealots, racists and utter fools.
But to add injury to insult they keep taking OUR money!!
5
EE gad! Liars galore.
You have to love how Republicans always prove their guilt by projection.
Republicans are conspiring with OPEC to price gouge. Before Trump became President and during the time of Obama/Biden, the price of a barrel of crude oil was only 19 dollars. After four years of an Exxon Secretary of State and many protege's jaunts to oil producing nations, the price quandrupled up to 80 dollars.
Then came the Democrat financial assistance to keep us from Depression, and what happened? The largely Republican owned businesses saw that people had money and then price gouged. They pillaged the assistance and also gouged to pay off their pandemic losses.
You know we people always pay rich guys. They got caught doing it, clueless Democrats won't say it, and I'm just awe struck that I have to keep writing this.
I don't think Congress reads these comments, otherwise they would win easily and price gougers would be in prison. So does this mean it's Republicans turn to hold power? Can someone please ask Wall Street TV?
11
If Republicans can blame Biden for worldwide inflation Democrats should blame Ron DeSantis for Hurricane Ian. “He could have stopped it” they should repeat without explaining how, until people start believing it and he’s forced to defend himself. That’s the GOP playbook Dems never learn. Dems don’t do offense. That’s their big problem but they sure are good at money begging.
15
COVID disrupted the international supply chains, creating inflation around the world.
Putin’s war against Ukraine also disrupted the supply chains, further contributing to inflation.
The solution to international inflation is not raising interest rates to create a worldwide recession.
Instead, the solution is to defeat COVID and defeat Putin!
14
More tax cuts for the wealthy who are barely inconvenienced by inflation and spending cuts for social programs that reduce the severe impact of inflation on lower income Americans. This would be good policy if the goal of Republicans was a feudalistic society. Well, if the shoe fits…
14
The British smelled Liz Truss’s supply Side garbage in a heartbeat. Why can’t Americans? Is half our population that intellectually damaged?
14
"Trickle Down Tax Cuts for the Rich" always works, not for the economy but for getting Republicans elected by gullible fools (i.e. the American public).
13
"But while Republicans insist they will be better stewards of the economy, few economists on either end of the ideological spectrum expect the party’s proposals to meaningfully reduce inflation in the short term. Instead, many say some of what Republicans are proposing — including tax cuts for high earners and businesses — could actually make price pressures worse by pumping more money into the economy."
“It is unlikely that any of the policies proposed by Republicans would meaningfully reduce inflation in 2023, when rapidly rising prices will still be a major problem for the economy and for consumers,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute."
Says it all.
9
Republicans are heading in only one direction with their campaign rethoric and that's down the path of deep recession, which, of course, they will blame on President Biden. Cuts in government spending and higher deficits through corporate tax cuts are exactly what the economy doesn't need right now. But this is Republican orthodoxy and the GOP shows no signs of coming up with new ideas. That's why it's critical that we stay the course and avoid cuts in programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They will cause untold harm to the poor, the middle-class and seniors. Meanwhile, corporations will continue to post record profits and deficits will soar as they did under Donald Trump. It's the worst possible outcome. Right now, the economy is still showing signs of strength, most notably in solid employment numbers. But in their quest to "quell" inflation -- a worldwide problem -- they will push millions of workers into unemployment. They have no other way to lower prices. That's a stiff price to pay, when it's still possible to bring the economy in for a soft landing, preserve most jobs and gradually bring down inflation. Only a Democratic House and Senate can make that happen.
12
Inflation? What inflation? We live in an inflation world! I came to America to study in 1930s and every year the price of groceries were going up and never going down. When you grow older you eat less! Good for your health! But I always buy steaks for my grandchildren! I want them to grow bigger and happy!
6
You can’t proactively “fix inflation” just as you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. Inflation will dampen with a cooled down economy.
4
Republicans are offering the same fiscal policies that brought down the British government in record time. The inability to recognize inflation as a world-wide situation is troubling.
12
More troubling is Democrats don’t know how to attack the ridiculous GOP assertions about inflation.
10
Republicans did announce their plan to steer the American economy into the nearest ditch.
Make the Trump 2017 tax breaks for the wealthy 1% and businesses permanent. In other words, create a permanent, unfunded tax break for the richest people in America. I got mine, you’re on your own.
Rescind the 15% tax on corporations that was just passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. The tax made the new programs of the IRA fully funded.
My tax filings are squeaky clean. I ask questions to make sure I am filing according to the law. Let’s hire some more IRS folks. If you’re not cheating, no worries.
Trickle down Reaganomics over and over and over again. Over 40 years of that lie. All that the Republican corporate and rich people welfare ever did was leave a yellow stain on the stagnated Middle Class working family.
Don’t vote for the Republicans. They will just continue the trickle down lie. It would be doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You know what they say that is a symptom of.
13
GQP plans - eliminated Obama Care, eliminate Medicare, eliminate Social Security, cut taxes for the rich and again increase them on the middle class, cut defense money that helps the troops and their families, eliminate even more IRS staff and any attempt to modernize their ancient computer systems, eliminate EPA, gut election and consumer safeguards...
11
What do you get with the big red wave?
Two years of congressional investigations, impeachment proceedings, and essentially no government. However, given Republican’s political philosophy of we don’t want your stinking government messing around with our business, Republican’s will be super happy. All the while the plans are being made for the return of Trump. All swing states will have been changed into the legislature can pick the electors model. This model insures that Trump is re-elected. Don’t worry Trump will still be eligible. If this nightmare scenario comes true, inflation will be the least of peoples worries as the Michael Flynn model of turn the USA into rule by religion replaces the constitution. At this point in the coup, what does the military do? I suspect that at that point the hot civil war begins. Flynn commands the rebels and militias, and a general who still supports the constitution fights them. Meanwhile back in Moscow, Putin is smiling at the news and the disaster created by the red wave.
11
If the Republican policies are enacted, by this time in 2023. inflation will be at the level it was at in the Carter administration. Thus the middle class and the laboring class have more than sufficient reason to VOTE BLUE in 2022 and in 2024.
12
For a preview of Republican plans, look no further than across the pond and how the financial markets responded to tax cuts on the wealthy with no plan to fill the deficit.
American markets will vote on Nov 9th.
15
@RCK And I'm afraid that 51%will vote in ignorance.
10
The GOP isn't going to bother saying how their policy on inflation will work, because they don't have a policy on inflation. They don't pretend to have one. They don't pretend that it's any of their business to have one, any more than they had a policy on COVID or one on fire management or one on anything else. The very idea of having a policy is "Deep State". Government in their minds now is serving the business of the feudalists at the top, not the good of the public. Inflation today in the US is helping the management of corporations whose sole duty is to themselves; so the GOP isn't going to do a thing about it.
19
The old tried Republican tax policies of cuts for the wealthy and increases for everyone else - the "Supply Side" garbage - has never worked and will not work today. Intelligent voters know this. The rest are spoon fed by untruths.
20
They are implying that Democrats are the culprits too behind high inflation numbers in England, Singapore, Japan, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Philippines.. the list goes on.
When are they going to be aware that this is a worldwide problem?
18
@Michael When it fits their agenda
5
No serious economist would suggest the $1.9 trillion "stimulus" and spending package passed on a party-line vote (0 Republican votes) in March, 2021 hasn't been a significant contributor to inflation. Many economists warned that it was clear that the US was doing fine at that time and no additional stimulus was warranted. The estimates range of impact to inflation is a 0.5-3% increase; somewhere in the middle is enormous and without which would have made inflation much more manageable. See "https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/09/inflation-economy-biden-covid/".
The Inflation Reduction Act is a climate and health care spending bill, but it doesn't actually reduce inflation. It was passed on a party line vote in August, 2022 (0 Republican votes). It was cynically named in advance of the midterm elections - it doesn't have an impact on near term inflation and almost no impact on medium term inflation (statistically, it's zero impact). See "https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/final-bill-still-no-threat-to-inflation-penn-wharton-scholars-estimate/".
All this while Democrats are against US fossil fuel production.
Republicans will do well in November because inflation and energy prices are very high; and also because of the policy decisions of Democrats. Why is anyone surprised?
4
@AW Inflation is just as high or higher in most other countries. Gas prices have fallen considerably. Oh yes, Republicans live in an "alternate reality".
10
@AW not sure what is so bad about a climate spending bill or are you in that group that doesn't care about the planet?
8
I seriously doubt if readers of the New York Times are so stupid that they need to be told that the Republican plans to combat inflation are, amazingly enough, campaign propaganda rather than sound economic policy.
16
Nive time to be saying this, just months late. Is this just the NYT effort to have an I told you so defense so after Republicans take the mid terns and then do nothing but block stuff for two years, you can say "I told you so". Please. You have spent all of 2021 and 2022 saying how terrible inflation is. You refuse to say anything about Trump's FED appointees, you refuse to show how govt. help actually helped millions make it thru 2021. You show inflation but don't talk about how business algorithms are setting prices, even though I read about that frightening fact in the NYT years ago.
Either the NYT staff doesn't know how to research your own archives or you are purposely pretending there isn't any historical data to challenge Republican claims. Why would you do that? I can't think of a rational reason to wait until the end of October to report that Republicans are the king with no clothes. I have already voted. I voted Blue because I have a memory. Apparently the NYTs doesn't .
17
Tax cuts to fight inflation? That’s throwing gasoline on the fire. Even Republicans can’t be that stupid.
No, it’s cynicism. They know tax cuts play well to their unthinking mob, as well as further enrich their main target, the wealthy.
12
Riding the "anger wave", that's what Republicans and the Maga mob do best.
12
Trump supported Putin and now Putin is massacring people. Trump doesn't say a word.
11
Republicans take from the poor and give to rich and the legion of dupes cry out…Amen! As long as there is a scapegoat there will a sucker voting.
8
Republican tax cuts "could lead to" business investment. Really? The record shows it leads instead to stock buybacks--and that to greater income inequality.
Make stock buybacks following tax cuts illegal again.
9
There is an old adage, "don't wish too hard, you just might get you asked for".
If the Republicans take over the House and the Senate and enact policies that don't deliver, they may be handing the presidency and the next congress to Democrats.
Cutting Taxes on the wealthy and cutting spending on the other side of the fiscal equation could end up being a disaster. The wealthy will have even more money to spend, fueling more inflation, and everyone else will see cuts which will require even more pain to compensate for in personal and family budgets: Degrading personal and family budgets that are already at a breaking point.
6
@Trebor Flow
My fear is if the Republicans take control, we will have a dictatorship.
10
If assumptions are correct and the GOP retake the House and Senate I hope they decimate social security, farm subsidies, FEMA, and any other federal social safety net out there. Some people brand these as socialist policies and it's my understanding that they want the federal gov't out of their business, so shut them down.
This isn't because I don't support these the safety nets and the federal gov't engaging to try and create a better union for ALL, but if this is what the majority of people say they want, it's what the politicians they trust tell them is best, then give it to them.
It's like a dog chasing the car, they won't know what to do when they get what they've been crowing about. Kind of how banning abortion was a high level, this will never come to pass conversation until it wasn't.
We'll see how everyone else that votes R and benefits from these programs feels when they are gone. I only hope that the boomers and those reliant on the system are impacted equally, that this isn't just something you take from your children and grandchildren.
If you vote in people that want to slash taxes on the rich and corporations, defund the IRS then you deserve to live with the consequences. I'm only sorry for all the people you will take down with you.
4
Didn’t we just see the tax cut movie? As I recall, economic crisis ensued and a rotting head of lettuce outlasted the main characters.
6
The Republican plan to address inflation is to put women in jail for accessing healthcare. Seems logical.
9
Perhaps the Republicans can explain how additional tax cuts would not be inflationary, or they could simply ask Liz Truss to do so. The economic policy to which Republicans will admit are a recipe for disaster.
7
Once again, the GOP trots out its broken record of failed "trickle-down" economics. The Trump tax cuts didn't work to boost corporate investment, extending them won't either. It will boost spending by the rich though, which as noted, worsens inflation and will only drive interest rates higher (and thus costs on our deficit.
They are right about reducing government expenditures - but they forget that expenditures go both ways. There are payments through government programs like Social Security. But there are also TAX expenditures like cutting tax rates on companies and the wealthy.
Here's my fix for inflation: Let the Fed do their painful job, and look at ways to fix the tax code to increase taxes on wealthy individuals (who, because of higher take-home pay, make a bigger impact on inflation than we do). Time to flip the Social Security earnings cap to an earnings floor & tax earned income OVER $142k instead of only under. Or just eliminate the cap. How about increasing the limits on itemized deductions and business loss deductions?
My favorite - why do we allow deductions for interest & taxes paid on vacation homes when most of us can't even afford a primary home??? It's crazy!
Cut some of those silly tax expenditures before reducing programs that are successfully helping the working poor and middle class. And let 99% of the Trump tax cuts sunset in 2025 - except the increase in standard deduction.
6
I’m sure you’re not one of the many people who depend on Social Security and Medicare to stay alive.
3
Remember that economists are about as obtuse as everyone else. One should take their prognostications with about the same weight as a palm reading at the fair.
Check out what Robert Reich has to say about this...
Historically, Republicans take care of the rich. Lower income people should just "work harder" or get a better education. And "safety nets", a la SS and Medicare, are fair fame?! They've been saying it for years, folks. Get the picture?? If they get their hands on it, will you still be glad you voted for them??
I can't believe voters will fall for their malarkey AGAIN. If they do, we'll all suffer, but I hope "they" will suffer more...
9
In a continuation of their roles of the past half century or more, Republicans offer economic fantasies and lies, in place of rational governing and economic programs demonstrably helpful to average citizens.
5
Americans simply do not have the intellectual wherewithal to achieve a functioning democracy. We see it in the response to a deadly and destructive pandemic and acceptance and welcoming of dangerous and destructive politics. Never has a society with so much potential squandered it so blatantly.
9
Maybe we wouldn't hear so much about how Democrats are doomed in the midterms if the NYT did more actual reporting about the differences between the parties and the impacts of their policies. The GOP will be a disaster for the economy, as it always is. The authoritarianism is just a bonus now, I guess.
12
Somehow it seems like it’s all messaging, all the “buzz.” The “buzz” people keep repeating is that the Republicans are going to win, the Democrats are too worried about pronouns and are responsible for the bad economy, the Republicans understand the problems of the average person, the Republicans are new and exciting, the Democrats are terrible at messaging and have lost their touch. Everybody is becoming a Republican. None of this is the truth. None of it is fact. Nobody has actually examined each party’s policies. Nobody understands why inflation has happened. The press doesn’t really cover that, they just comer what people are saying and who is likely to win. (Read your own focus group articles, NYT. They just parrot the same sound bites.). Nobody has actually witnessed a fight about pronouns, or a “crisis at the border.” People do see inflation, and maybe they can’t get jobs. They blame whoever most people they listen to blame. They blame what the buzz tells them to. Abortion, now that’s a real substantive, issue, that’s a big thing that people can point to that the Republicans did that should influence whether they win. People cared about abortion for about five minutes, but their attention spans weren’t longer than that and now they’re on to the newest meme. InIt’s all just sound bites. They repeat what they hear on social media, until it seems true. It’s all advertising, there’s no substance. And it’s going to win. Because That’s what “the buzz” is.
7
lets see hear what happens should the gop take control of the senate and house.
enforce and lower corp tax rates which will add to the deficit trumps reduction in those same rates added 7 trillion and only benefitted the top 1%, trickle down never works.
drastic cuts to ssi and medicare if you are on it you will get screwed.
repeal the ability for medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.
pass a state wide ban on abortion thus removing a womens right to choose her own medical needs
5
Finally, the media is giving some coverage to what the Republicans would actually do about inflation (not much) instead simply making the lazy presumption that Republicans are better on the economy, no questions asked (by journalists!). Once again, the Republican “plan” is unpaid-for tax cuts for the most wealthy Americans. Pay attention, voters, don’t buy the talking points without looking at the historical facts.
13
There's never been a problem that Republicans couldn't make worse.
16
This is for the GOP supporters. Liz Truss is conservative same mind set as your group. She gave all the money to the rich in tax breaks and she crashed Englands stock markets. Those people had pensions tied to that and your plan to do the same in America will ruin us for years.
14
Really, this is the setup same as it ever was. Meanwhile, the average person is worried about money. GOP will drop the old corp tax rate drop- which will not help anyone working for wages. So here's a clue GOP- to help the average person- end income tax. Wow! that's so simple.
Spin its giving American's the money back! and reducing government waste and reducing taxes! holy cow! you won!
@Ed
that will never happen
3
THANK YOU. This sort of coverage has been sorely lacking of late. Too much horse race, not enough fact checking and examination of policy. Thank you.
8
Never trust someone who tells you that he/she can help you but won’t say how.
8
I don’t know if the American public would pay attention but public education through media about the nature of inflation and high gas prices is needed. These are global phenomena. It always seems like the Republican remedies are cut taxes, cut government regulations, cut government spending and let the “fat cats” get fatter. People, in general, are clueless and it’s way too simple to blame Biden. The pathway to our current dilemma has been building for years. Thanks Fed for close to zero interest rates. Uh, ask yourself, would you have given back your stimulus checks/loans/grants because this was inflationary? Doubt it.
10
Panic-stricken Democrats try to shift their messaging to the economy (from abortion & Trump) and lo and behold a front pager in the NYT parroting their wishful assertion: GOP can't solve inflation either. How about the simple fact that Democrats spent us into this mess (and still promise to spend trillions more!) and the GOP will at least stop the spending madness. Might that cause at least some folks to pull the lever for GOP?
3
Government caused the high inflation through excessive Covid-related spending (including the $2.1 trillion American Rescue Plan signed by Biden) and excessive money supply growth by the Federal Reserve. The Covid spending has stopped, but Biden has thrown in some more spending that's not helping. The Federal Reserve must claw back some of its money growth by raising interest rates. New tax cuts will make things worse. You can give both parties, and Jerome Powell, an F over the past 3 years.
3
@tanstaafl
Wrong!
The worldwide high inflation was caused by COVID and aggravated by Putin.
7
Oh boy I can’t wait for Republicans to solve the inflation problem! Right after they end Obamacare!
7
WHY WE HAVE INFLATION: the rate of increase in prices over a given period of time. Watch these to see who specifically is responsible for the US inflation. Start with Katie Porter... she's always a great show.
Katie Porter delivers MASTERCLASS on Inflation and utterly DEBUNKS Republican lies
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ixmqzjvb7k
You Are Not Responsible for Inflation. But Who Is? [Robert Reich]
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7_BUOxv1UmQ&t=4s
6
Republicans don't need a plan to stop inflation. Or more precisely, simply by doing nothing there actions will be far better than the actions of Democrats regarding inflation.
It was Joe Biden who seemed to promise during the campaign to help the nation heal after Trump's presidency by facilitating negotiation and compromise. Yet almost as soon as his presidency started, Biden signed a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan which was passed in Congress along party lines. Republicans tried to offer alternatives, but the Democrats made use of their narrow majority to pass a highly partisan bill.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was signed on March 11. In Feb the CPI was 1.7%. By ay it had climbed to 5.0%.
Then Paul Krugman argued that the inflation was transitory, and the Fed seems to have sided with him, since it delayed monetary action for about a year, allowing inflation expectations to be imbedded in the economy.
Biden's spending continues. Most recently, Biden has announced a debt forgiveness plan for College Students, which seems to be unconstitutional, since it does not have legislative approval.
Inflation robs penioners of their income after they can no longer work. This includes retired teachers, police officers and firefighters
Liberal economists, extolling the virtues of modern monetary theory, have set in motion inflationary forces that threaten the lives of the old and infirm.
We cannot afford more excessive spending by Democrats.
1
@Jake Wagner So, how would the tax cuts being espoused by Republicans have a different outcome than the stimulus money that the American Rescue Plan provided? Both measures put more money into the economy, right? By this logic, shouldn't the Republican candidates be advocating for tax increases?
6
@Jake Wagner Seems like the excessive spending is not being done by Democrats but then you probably knew that before coming up with your fable https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united-states-presidents-have-run-largest-budget-deficits.asp
5
Tax cuts for billionaires leads to more fuel for the inflation fire. The opposite, tax increases, would take away spending power and slow inflation.
That’s exactly what Democrats tried to do. They wanted to include tax rate increases for the wealthiest in the Inflation Reduction Act but found zero Republican support.
Voters who are really worried about inflation and trying to decide which party is serious about taming it should think again if their answer is Republican.
14
@Sapman I couldn't agree more. Not only that, but tax cuts are tax expenditures - they also pump money in to the economy. The worst thing we could do now is to increase fiscal stimuli while the Fed is reducing the money supply!!
4
The glorious irony of all of this is that we just saw a foreign conservative party put forth a similar agenda as the GOP and it tanked the economy and created the shortest premiership in the history of the UK and we are about to vote this party back into power.
American's are too emotional in their decision making, I think a healthy dose of stoicism is in order.
32
@Jason
Exactly. We haven't punished ourselves enough yet.
2
Republicans only think about cutting taxes for the wealthy. This won’t fix the economy as a matter of fact it will only worsen the problem. Whenever has the solution been when you are paying your bills that you reduce the payment, or take a part time job so you have less funds to pay your bills. Maybe that will work some other time, but right now no. This country as well as other nations are just getting back to work. We are all in post pandemic inflation.
7
So which happened first, the chicken or the egg. When was the first case of inflation started causing the price of good to climb, then of course eventually workers needed more money to survive, and those items that were deemed as having a higher demand just fueling this very sick cycle of "inflation". I did say sick, self perpetuating, greed driven illness.
Under the perspective of Cost-Push inflation, Cost-push inflation (also known as wage-push inflation) occurs when overall prices increase (inflation) due to increases in the cost of wages and raw materials. Higher costs of production can decrease the aggregate supply (the amount of total production) in the economy. Since the demand for goods hasn't changed, the price increases from production are passed onto consumers creating cost-push inflation.
Supply and Demand: the amount of a commodity, product, or service available and the desire of buyers for it, considered as factors regulating its price.
1
The NYT doesn't get it. Inflation is how plutocracy taxes poor and middle income people. It's not an accident, it's an algorithm. Under what party has the most middle income wealth been transferred? When a homeowner loses their house, that wealth is transferred. All their years of payments, property taxes, interest etc. invested in that home are transferred to banks. Because the home owner never really owned the house in the first place. Why home owners should pay taxes on houses that banks actually own is one of the great lies of buying a house. When Trump's Republican appointees raise interest rates home owners with mortgages suffer. Their investment are reduced or even eliminated. Given that half their wage went into those homes, that means their real wage, once that investment is gone was half what our records claim.
Republicans claim taxes transfer wealth to the unworthy, but have no problem letting their Friends at the FED steal years of investment from the middle class all while blaming democrats for the minor issue of inflation. Inflation bites, but and it steal wages, but increases in interest rates will steal years of wages from millions of middle class working Americans. Stop the Republican FED.
9
@pjtawney But it's not just the Fed. If the GOP slashes taxes and extends the TCJA cuts for the wealthy, that will blow up inflation to 1979 levels. Tax breaks/cuts/credits are tax EXPENDITURES and thus add fuel to the fire. Inflation is a consequence of 20 years of 0% interest rates and a worldwide supply chain disruption from a pandemic. Let's also not forget that most of the world economy is seeing high inflation.
That said, inflation can be tamed ONLY by sound fiscal and monetary policy. As I recall, GOP tanked the tax increases on the wealthy that would have paid for the last spending bill. Seeing that Congress doesn't have the majority needed to rein in spending and increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy, the Fed has little choice but to drastically act with severe monetary policy.
Fiscal, monetary, and trade policy work together to manage inflation and target employment. Congress, not the Fed, is to blame.
2
I have no doubt that if or when the republicans take control of the House and/or Senate they will propose absolutely no viable solution to the inflation problem. Not only that- they will continue to blame the Democrats regardless. This is why people have become so cynical about politics. The irony is that inflation is controlled/influenced most by the Fed and the business cycle (not to mention wars, like in Ukraine).
11
The concept of the Big LIe about Trump's delusional screed that the 2020 election was stolen from him is not new to the GOP world. The longest running lie told by the GOP is the idea that only they know how to control the economy through trickle-down economics. Even Saint Reagan's Supply-Side Mania was just more government spending, but it was on weapons, not social programs. All their plans do is inflict pain on the "have-nots" and give money to the "haves". We have demand driven inflation in a country with quite low unemployment. There was a time when unemployment was thought that it could not get any lower because of the "frictional" rate, or at least that percent of the workforce would always be in flux for various reasons: changing jobs, illness, retirement, relocation, and family leave. Despite the low unemployment, you can see help wanted signs everywhere. The only way to reduce inflation in this situation is to dramatically reduce demand and high gasoline prices are the perfect indicator or strong demand.
3
@Unclebugs True - and yet the GOP (and thus Congress) is unwilling to throttle back tax breaks (expenditures) for the wealthy. Part of inflation we can't control - global impact, trade, supply chain. Part of it we can control - fiscal policy through government spending (most of it defense and tax expenditures), reducing tariffs and improving trade (thus making imports cheaper), and decreasing the take home income of those who spend the most - the top 20%.
And yes, we forget that labor and wages are "sticky." But prices are impacted by reduced demand (fiscal policy) and increased supply (trade policy). I doubt any party in Congress will have the courage to change either.
1
Yes, as the establishment economists of mild left and right appear to agree: it is unlikely that Republican policies will do much more than "bend the curve" of inflation back downward.
But remember, these are the same partisan clowns -- with notable exceptions, like Larry Summers -- who pooh pooh inflation risk, claimed for more than a year it would be transitory, and even now deny that inflation can be sparked by excessive government spending during an economic shutdown, on top of the Fed's "hot money" policies of zero interest rates, and $9 trillion in securities on the Fed's balance sheet (QE).
But this
And most fundamentally, the NYT is asking the wrong question. The midterm election not a referendum only on what the GOP may do.
It is a choice between Democrat policies, and the GOP alternatives.
The correct question is two-part.
First, what will happen if Democrats continue to punish oil and gas producers, pile on billions more in Ukraine aid, and spend trillions of dollars more to stimulate even more unsated demand here than now?
And compared to that Democrat baseline -- continued ruinous inflation, and perhaps stagflation -- how would the Republican austerity plan compare?
2
I am old enough to remember Republicans solutions to the high inflation of the 1970s. Nixon's wage and price freezes and Ford's WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons. It wasn't until Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker that anything worked. Of course now the slam at Democrats is that Carter caused high interest rates forgetting that high interest rates were the thing that slowed inflation.
14
@CM99 If Carter had been re-elected, the US would have been energy self reliant in the early 80’s. Instead we got Reagan, who simply shifted taxes to the local level and drove the deficit into the stratosphere, not to mention his criminal acts.
6
@CM99 True! But hindsight is 20-20, and Volker's severe monetary tightening was too harsh, throwing the economy into an even worse tailspin than "stagflation." Just take a look at the numbers from the 1981 recession.
Today's Fed inherited 20 years of 0% interest rates and a split Congress that is unwilling to do its part. If Congress got its act together and raised taxes on corps & the top 20% as well as eliminate the $140k individual wage cap on Social Security tax, the Fed would not have to look to adopt a near-Volker slam-on-the-brakes policy. Also Biden could reduce tariffs - trade policy has a role to play as well.
4
What plan? The GOP cannot run government. They only know how do give tax breaks to billionaires and take Putin's money.
9
What about taxing the homeless instead of tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations at this time? I think we’d all enjoy that, broad support from both Republicans and Democrats.
1
The two dirtiest words in politics are "tax increases" but if you want to reign in spending this would be the correct measure to implement. It's not like we are lacking for needs in infrastructure development, for example.
2
@Mark Let's call them what economists, researchers, and tax experts do: tax expenditures. Not tax hikes. Not death taxes, or all of the silly names the GOP has coined.
Reducing tax expenditures on the wealthy will not only reduce government spending, but it will have a higher multiplier effect to reduce inflation - since the wealthy spend far more than the rest of us measly 80% of Americans. Why should I have to pay for some Senator's vacation home tax deduction? Or the cushy Congressional pensions & healthcare? They line their pockets at our expense.
2
@Kate What? Senators are hardly at the high end of the economic spectrum -- there are 25 year old marketers that demand higher salaries than our Senators receive.
1
Cutting taxes for the richest of the rich isn't going to do diddly squat for reducing inflation, but it may exacerbate it for items such as yacht, art work, and jewelry. Like that's going to help me now pay $50 for bread, milk, eggs, a few fresh vegetables and fruits, the occasional frozen pizza, lunch meat, yellow mustard, and every now and then splurging on a pound of chicken breasts or hamburger that used to cost me $25 three years ago? Sure, Republicans, I gotcha.
5
@Jan N Increasing taxes on the rich would help though - it would reduce government spending plus have the benefit of barely reducing the rich's take-home pay. It's their spending that has the biggest impact of any consumer group on inflation. Government spending, particularly tax breaks/expenditures and defense spending, has an even bigger inflationary impact.
And as demand for yachts decline, so does demand for teak/wood and fiberglass, and thus the price of oil (fiberglass) & construction of bakeries that make our (literal) bread. That is documented, researched, real "trickle-down" economics - reducing consumer and government spending while increasing interest rates to slow inflation.
3
Well America, you get what you vote for.
Seems like Republicans are poised to take both the House and Senate.
And when the Recession hits next year or in 2024 - think they'll take the blame?
No, they'll blame Biden, again.
The question is, will America fall for it? (Again)
10
@Carl It was just 3 years ago that the GOP held the trifecta - Senate, House, and White House. And they had a true (thin but true) majority in the Senate. What we have now is still 50-50 (I'm excluding the independents who still caucus here and there).
We also have forgotten the numbers: 1.1m people died from Covid because the GOP bungled the response. $3.2T on corporate and wealthy tax cuts which had little economic impact on an overheated economy. And 2019 - the true start of the recession we blame on Covid that actually started with Trump's horrid tariffs and trade policy.
3
Once inflation takes off it takes about two years to get it back down. That’s the BEST scenario. Look at history. This is a fact not a partisan statement. After the first year of Covid the pumping of dollars into the economy should have stopped. But it didn’t and here we are.
3
That would be the same economists would that told us inflation was transitory and not caused by a monetary policy anyway?
1
The fact that there is "a wave of anger" over inflation demonstrates the uninformed and childish state of the electorate. Inflation is frustrating, but "anger" implies that it's the result of some malicious entity foisting higher prices on us. That's simply not how it works. Understanding the causes of inflation requires a thoughtful approach, not an emotional one. Evaluating how proposed policies might impact the inflation rate requires a similar rational and objective analysis rather than an emotional response.
It's time for Americans to start thinking and acting like grownups.
6
@Jeff I agree, but even in speaking with my highly educated spouse, his eyes glaze over when I talk about the interaction of fiscal, monetary, and trade policy; the impact of global inflation blended with supply chain disruptions and pent-up post-pandemic demand (which we've never seen and thus can't predict).
But he sees the price at the pump and the cost of a dozen eggs, as well as the empty store shelves. He knows not to complain too much about inflation else I bring out the bar charts of post-WWII modern economic history, and frankly no one (but me) wants to hear that.
How do we make all of this into something that he and others can understand? It's not as simple as one thing, and it's no one's fault though Congress could do more by decreasing tax breaks for the rich and corporations.
Economics was not the most popular undergrad major at my university by leagues.
5
The republicans are asking us to believe that they can fix problems outside of congresses control. Anyone earning less than $200,000 per year should be very leery about voting Republican.
I do have one suggestion that they will not consider though. Why not cut transfer payments to red states that receive more aide from the federal government than they pay in federal taxes?
9
So then, I guess Biden is also to blame for the inflation, often higher, all around the world? If Republicans pull off their latest scam, it will remain a testament to the insular and oblivious mindset of the average American voter.
7
@Robert H. And yet Trump was not to blame for his disastrous tariffs, trade policies, and expensive tax cuts for the rich & corporations. I'll grant him an exemption on the loose monetary policy and absurdly low interest rates on an economy that was flying but getting close to overheating.
Here's just a reminder: In September 2022, the inflation rate in Russia reached 13.7 percent compared to the same month of the previous year. The figure marked a decrease from August 2022, when it stood at 14.3 percent.
Inflation is raising prices and interests. Who raises the prices and interest rates? Oh, my, it's the Chief Executive Officers of the companies and banks who are 90% Republicans.
Republicans have raised prices and bank interest rates and sid "Oh my what are the Democrats going to do about inflation?"
I could make a lot of suggestions but they would not be published. Just point out the facts that most Capitalists are Republican and they have raised the prices and interest rates charged to borrowers
2
Living in a blue city, in a blue county and in a blue state I don't see any campaign videos. Are the Democrats getting out the Senior vote by saying what would happen to Social Security and Medicare if the McCarthy led MAGAs win the House and Senate?
Biden and a few other Dems only mention it in passing in news articles but where's the forceful rhetoric?
3
Just so it’s said, fact of the matter is that current inflation rates are a problem, but they’re actually pretty modest. For one thing, they’re about half what they were when Jimmy Carter left office, and during St. Ronnie’s first two years. For another, try Venezuela’s.
And just so’s it’s asked: if you think that covid relief caused all this, would you REALLY rather have had millions of evictions, millions of people completely jobless, millions of landlords and small companies earning not a dime?
Really?
5
@Robert Increasing subsidies for healthcare, expanding Medicare, and boosting unemployment benefits have little inflationary impact. The effects of $3.2T tax cut for the rich & corporations, and the tariffs that Biden has yet to fully reduce have very real impacts on inflation.
My family's health insurance cost went from $2400 a month to $750. Doesn't seem inflationary to me. Seems like one of several lifebuoys provided by the DNC.
3
Proposed tax and spending cuts by the G.O.P.,
Tax cuts? For businesses and wealthy individuals? Groundbreaking.
7
Every economist that I have read or watched says that inflation is mostly caused by rising wages due to full employment. Someone needs to face the camera and ask the voters: do you want lower wages or lower prices? Tax cuts for the rich never work. Come to that, most GOP economic policies do not work, and yet the voters seem to believe in the magical thinking that the GOP is better for the economy.
10
@Katie Harper Which economists? Because this economist will tell you that our current inflation has multiple causes, the least of which is high employment. Our unemployment rate is slightly above what it was pre-pandemic, averaging about where we were under Obama's second term.
Current inflation is exacerbated by: global inflation, supply chain disruptions, pent-up consumer & corporate demand, OPEC's reduction in oil production plus embargoed Russian oil & natural gas, reduced oil refinement because of rising oil futures, disrupted raw material production, increased tax expenditures (tax cuts) for the wealthy & corporations, reduced & eliminated regulatory policies under Trump, and 20 years of 0% interest & lax monetary policy under everyone.
Rising wages have their place, to be sure. But wages and labor are sticky - just look at state-by-state data on unemployment and wage data, compared to inflation rates. The data show a modest correlation between unemployment and inflation, but correlation doesn't equal causation, and the impact of wages on inflation is far less than many would expect. Economic history shows that as well - look at post-Vietnam & post-Korea data as well as the oil shocks of the mid-70s.
It will be years to get out of the hole that democrats dug us into. Trillions in government spending (most of which hasn't even occurred), increased government regulations, and a war on fossil fuels. The economy is only going to get worse next year and it will take a new republican president to reverse the inflationary pressures created by Biden and his administration.
@Nancy P Um, who passed a $3.2T tax cut for the wealthy and corporations? Who wouldn't let the spending bills come to the floor unless tax cuts (tax expenditures) were removed? Who confirmed the current Fed chair (that's not really fair, but just pointing it out)? Who slashed government oversight and regulation which also fueled an overheated economy?
Who hiked tariffs so high and bungled Covid response and infrastructure support so that the global supply chain crisis of 2019 to now worsened exponentially?
And who had "one-party" control of the House, Senate, and White House just 3 years ago when the current fires started to flame?
3
Republicans are stronger on the economy for narrative reasons. Reality is a different story. Vote rationality, not narratives!
3
Republicans see no problem that can't be solved by making rich people richer and the rest of us poorer.
4
For the last four decades, the only ideas Republicans have had are cutting taxes for the wealthy and eliminating government programs and services that benefit the non-wealthy. No matter what ails the economy, whether recession or inflation, the solution is to cut taxes for the wealthy and eliminate government programs and services that benefit the non-wealthy. Never mind that the tax cuts have never created the promised "trickle-down." Or that corporations consistently use their tax cut windfall to buy back their stock, buy other companies, and pay shareholders dividends rather than investing in domestic production and job creation as Republicans always promise.
So now that inflation is a concern for voters, they have a brilliant new solution: Cutting taxes for the wealthy and eliminating government programs and services that benefit the non-wealthy. When your tool kit contains only hammers, everything is a nail. But when you have a successful propaganda apparatus that keeps voters inflamed with culture wars, you don't need new ideas. You don't need any ideas at all. The prospect of "owning the libs" is sufficient to entice millions of loyal chickens to vote once again for Colonel Sanders.
8
Republican solution to inflation? Tax Cuts to the Rich.
Republican solution to stagflation? Tax Cuts to the Rich.
Republican solution to rising costs? Tax Cuts to the Rich.
Republican solution to rising deficit? Tax Cuts to the Rich.
Republican solution to budget deficit? Tax Cuts to the Rich.
Republican solution to increased gas prices? Tax Cuts to the Rich.
Republican solution to ...whatever? Tax Cuts to the Rich.
10
@Ed Gee, I wonder... what tax bracket do most of Congress fall into? And those social safety net programs for healthcare like ACA, Medicaid, and Medicare that they intend to slash - who has probably the cushiest health insurance plan in the country next to Elon Musk?
Maybe it's time we stopped letting legislators decide their own salary, perks, and benefits. And allowing them to trade on insider Congressional information with just a slap on the wrist. Maybe they need to be exempted from those tax cuts to the rich.
2
The Republicans' 'inflation-reduction' plan is basically Liz Truss American.
Didn't work there, won't work here. It's zombie trickle-down economics, as Paul Krugman would define it.
3
See, THIS kind of article is far more useful than breathlessly covering polls. Polling people about how they are going to vote with very little coverage of candidate positions or what their proposals would actually do has been turning politics into a sport or social popularity contest. It also reinforces superficial narratives, like “Republicans are better on the economy,” with little critical thinking about whether they are true or even make sense as a premise (they aren’t and do not).
Sadly, many will vote GOP because inflation is bad. There is no real logical connection between high inflation and voting R, but that’s what will happen due to lackluster media coverage (and campaigning).
Dems didn’t cause inflation, Republicans won’t solve it, and the economy will just do its thing based on global conditions regardless of who’s in power. Factors like COVID, supply chain backups, and the war in Ukraine have much higher impacts than the supposed “spending” that Dems haven’t really been doing and never really do enough of when voters want them to.
Whoever is lucky enough to be in charge when inflation goes down will take credit.
4
@Stephen My sister lives in PA, and I asked her who she was voting for in 2 weeks, because whomever they elect for governor and senator are rather important.
She didn't know who was running for governor or any other races. She knew Dr. Oz was running for senate, and he's not from PA, but he must be smart because he's rich and he's a doctor on TV.
No joke. She's not alone either, and I doubt she'd say that in a poll.
2
In our "free" economy, no political party can control inflation, especially the Republicans, who if they win at least the House will be too busy, impeaching Biden, calling his son up before a committee along with Dr. Fauci and other vengeful acts to please their leader Donald J Trump. Once they're finished with that nonsense, they'll begin with their other favorite activities, liking banning schoolbooks, passing legislation repealing gay marriage. Banning the use of the word "gay" in public discourse. Nationalizing the banning of abortion. None of these activities will help our economy in any way. And they could care less. They just want to stay in power. Talk about a do-nothing House. And if the Republicans get to also control the Senate, Biden can use Harry Truman's phrase of a "do-nothing Congress"
5
Any plan is better than Biden's plan which caused much of the inflation to begin with.
@NYChap .... "Biden's plan which caused much of the inflation".....Which of course explains why the inflation rate in the EU is higher than the U.S..
2
@NYChap
In the UK and around the world, too? that's impressive.
2
@NYChap Yes because we know that Biden has control over global supply disruptions, global inflation, and Russia's war in Ukraine and the embargo on their oil & natural gas not to mention destroyed Ukrainian grain and crop exports.
He also has control over pent-up demand from a global pandemic that was mishandled by the previous administration, throwing everything into shambles. Oh, and let's not forget the $3.1T tax cut for the rich whose expenditures far exceed the lowly 80% of us. He has total control over that yacht market.
My favorite - OPEC decreased oil production just because they don't like Biden. Did I summarize ONN's coverage correctly?
2
No matter the complexities of issues, it seems republicans always do two things: 1) Blame the problem on democrats, whether it's toe fungus or inflation. 2) Quickly swivel to giving their rich cronies and wealthy selves further tax breaks in the same old tried-and-failed "trickle down" scam. In this rinse-repeat cycle, they're bankrupting the nation while enriching themselves on the backs of the dwindling middle class. And yet, they continue to dupe millions of FOX Newstainment viewers into buying their shtick. Quite the spectacle to observe, mean-spirited and destructive though it is.
4
By now I'm rooting with the media for a big republican win in November. I look forward to the tax cuts and elimination of all manner of entitlements. How about some months long shutdowns and a debt default for good measure? My so called fellow citizens are no longer worthy of my concern. It's every man for himself. Throw the women and children overboard.
@NeilDSmith I'm with ya. The last government shutdown under the previous administration was SO much fun. I love it when our government decides to buy more weapons while refusing to pay military, veterans, seniors, and government employees (and pay for their benefits) because of an arbitrary number that any economist will tell you has zero impact on anything but the overinflated Congressional egos.
Oh, and that they exempt themselves from the shutdown because they are "critical."
1
Funny how the GOP answer to every situation is the same: cut taxes and spending. I mean just logically the same answer does not apply to all situations. Ideological blinders.
7
Tax cuts are a stimulus. They would fan the flames of inflation.
9
They will win control, enact their tax and spending cuts, and when they don't work to reduce inflation, they will continue to blame Democrats for the failure.
9
The GOP is good at one thing: telling myths. That they are strong on the economy; that they are conservative spenders; that they care about the middle class, the working class, or, really, anyone; that funding the IRS is a bad thing for the average person; shall I go on? Actually, they're good at something else: criticizing the Democrats for things they are doing themselves. Oh, and then there's stoking fear of made up things. I guess they are good at a few things.
10
Just like the "Inflation Reduction" Act?
@Persnickety The IRA... isn't that the same IRA that had the corresponding tax increases (and thus reduced tax expenditures) stripped out by the GOP (and a certain WV Senator) so that it could even be brought to a vote?
1
Republican efforts always ruin our economy and history proves it.
If the economy verses our democracy is more important to people they wouldn't vote for a Republican.
6
Remind me what happened to the Liz Truss & British inflation/market when she instituted similar policies.
8
Regardless, I just don’t see how Republicans can make it any worse. Maybe some of us are getting tired of the same old excuses and just want to hear some new ones at least.
1
@Ivermarkt ...Have you checked on the inflation and unemployment rate in Europe lately?
2
@Ivermarkt, Republicans can (and probably would) make inflation worse by cutting taxes more than they cut spending, thereby increasing the deficit (that is their usual pattern), which increases the money supply. Also, as this article points out, they want to cut the IRS budget, which would reduce revenue much more than it reduces spending, and essentially says "we side with tax cheats, you can stop worrying about getting caught".
Looking more broadly than inflation and the economy, many (most?) Republican candidates these days encourage people to reject election results. If that idea becomes entrenched, how can America avoid autocracy?
2
@Ivermarkt Hmmm... I can think of many, many ways they could make it worse. TRA '84 and the defense buildup of the 80's comes to mind... while the rest of Americans battled brutal unemployment.
Nixon/Ford's inflation "busting" proposals that heightened stagflation and gas lines in the '70s (to be fair, gas lines were caused by Nixon's nasty policies mucking around with Middle Eastern governments... that led to oh so much downstream including the oil embargo, later the fall of Iran, the rise of the Taliban....)
1
“Multiple top Republicans have signaled that unless Mr. Biden agrees to reduce future government spending, they will refuse to lift the borrowing cap.”
Bring it, and reap the whirlwind in 2024!
2
Everybody is saying the GOP are the best hopes to combat inflation. Biden has completely set the world on a course for severe recession due to his printing money.
I think we witnessed the results of right-wing economic policy, in its full glory, when Liz Truss attempted to implement a Libertarian fantasy in Britain. Very similar to what the Republicans would implement here. The same thing would happen. Markets no longer accept this as a valid for of leadership, and see it for the pandering to the wealthy that it is.
7
This is cynically political. First, it paints inflation as a uniquely American issue, not a global one. Second, actual budget deficits went down since Trump left office thanks to the revenue side. Also thanks to the revenue side and covid spending toward the end, budget deficits went up during the Trump years. Third, there are many factors behind inflation other than government spending, but Trump and Biden alike pumped money into the economy during the covid crisis.
23
@MEC The first point is quite wrong, in that it implies that America's inflation can be subsumed into "global" inflation. European inflation is distinct from American inflation.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-and-europe-have-different-inflation-problems-energy-food-prices-cost-11654541096
The last issue, however, is correct, but only up to a point. The American Rescue Plan was a Democratic bill, not a Trump bill. Trump, however, aligning himself with the progressives - Sanders, especially - wanted bigger stimulus checks and threatened a veto if he didn't obtain them.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-trump-idUKKBN28X01V
3
@David L, Jr.
It was the PPP money that broke the bank, not the ARA. Nearly al of that was written off without much justification - all on Republicans.
But they'll never take responsibility for it when they can convince their base to blame it on Biden.
1
@David L, Jr. Understand what you are trying to say, but energy prices (a headline price) have gone up all over the world, and covid happened all over the world resulting in supply glitches, fiscal stimuli, labor price increases, and pent up demand. The Ukraine war has had global inflationary impacts. Albeit with variations, food and fertilizer prices are a global phenomenon. And keep in mind that the US and Europe are certainly not the world these days. On the political point, I was just saying that the factors behind today's inflation cannot be attributed to just one party or the other as Republicans are trying to do now that they are out of office.
1
Talk about federal government policy to control inflation is misguided. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. (Too much money chasing too few goods.). Bank deposits comprise the vast majority of our money supply. Controlling the volume of bank deposits is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve. Therefore, the Federal Reserve, not the federal government, controls how much money there is in the economy. Without appropriate action by the Federal Reserve no federal government spending or taxing decision can affect the supply of money in the economy.
8
@Jack - "(Too much money chasing too few goods.)."
In other words, print the money out first, look for someone to produce the necessary goods second. Shouldn't it be the other other way around ?
It appears that virtually all folks believe that 'inflation' is somehow caused by politicians, so for the few who might be interested, here is the reason for inflation: When supply of goods is less than demand, prices go up because businesses sell less and need to raise prices to keep the doors open. The supply is down because our number one supplier of a lot of goods, China, has taken a much more strict approach to fighting Covid than most other countries. By increasing wages and offering financial help, we are actually making things worse because we increase demand without having the goods to create the balance needed.
6
@Danwood, I'd qualify your comment on increasing wagers by including that buying more things and services with those increased wages would have that effect, and that increased wages in of themselves to not cause an increase in inflation as you claim. Were the individuals whose wages increased saved their money or paid down debt, that would be a different story.
The way you framed it gives fodder to those individuals who oppose increasing wages on the grounds that it increases wages.
7
He’s correct that the wages and support helped inflate prices, but I don’t see how tens of millions of homeless and jobless people was a better idea.
You ask me, I think our current modest inflation—and it is in fact modest—was probably a necessary price.
12
@Danwood
Increased wages are no more inflationary than our record-high corporate profits.
A fact the right loves to ignore.
2
When the economy is going well, the GOP promotes tax and spending cuts. When the economy slows down, the GOP promotes tax and spending cuts. When there's a budget deficit, the GOP promotes tax and spending cuts. When there's a budget surplus, the GOP promotes tax and spending cuts. It's worth noting that there's no evidence that tax and spending cuts are effective in addressing any of these circumstances... and yet we continue to pretend that Republicans are engaged in some sort of serious dialog.
60
@George Colombo When the economy is going well, Democrats promote tax and spending plans. When the economy slows down, Democrats promote tax and spending plans. When there's a budget deficit, Democrats promote tax and spending plans. When there's a budget surplus, Democrats promote tax and spending plans. It's worth noting, however, that there's little evidence that tax and spending plans have achieved the goals Democrats have long claimed for them ... and yet we continue to pretend that Democrats are engaged in something other than inefficacious excess.
When the economy is strong the democrats crater it. Ask yourself if you are better off today than 18 months ago? So why would you reward the party that put us in the worst financial dilemma since the Great Recession? Increased spending and more government regulations will not right the US economy.
@George Colombo
And let's be clear, the tax cuts are NEVER for the middle class, only corporations and the 1%.
1
The words "Republican plans" represent an oxymoron when used with respect to national policy. The only plans Republicans have lean towards power, world domination, power, bigotry, antisemitism, power, voter suppression, white supremacy, power, tax cuts for businesses, and more power.
44
@Curmudgeon51 nice to generalize. I guess I can call all democrats pro criminals right?
States receiving the most federal money keep voting Republican. Perhaps they can all those guns shoot their feet and be done with it.
18
We're still waiting for that "great, great Republican health care plan, folks" that the Republicans promised — seven years ago!
They have no plans — only support for insurrection, sedition, treason and espionage.
51
This majority telling us that Rep policies won't help are the same group who said the Inflation Reduction Act would work. They are too stupid to look past the name of the Act, to see the actual policies enacted. Hopelessly compromised, lockstep thinking, group think, tribal behavior.
2
The Inflation Reduction Act was passed only a couple months ago and most of the provisions have yet to go into effect. To say the IRA is not working is akin to taking a Tylenol and then complaining after 1 minute that you still have a headache.
5
Feel free to explain when and where exactly it was that your Big Same Old Plan ever worked.
Start with Liz Truss’ markets.
@Paul
Perfect description of the republican party…
1
Inflation is a product of Covid, its Omicron strain, and Putin’s criminal war, in that order. Afterwards, it morphed into a corporate greed-driven “beggar thy neighbor” dynamic.
Just dumb luck for Republicans, the only kind they know.
23
Non-stop articles here......meant to influence the elections.
I remember when the NYT's was a newspaper.
Why not just have the headline "Republicans Denounce Inflation as Election Draws Near". You can find an economist to support almost anything.
You're going to push subscribers to the WSJ.....and only be left with people that love the propaganda (HuffPost comes to mind).
6
Shouldn't we also know that Reps have no plan to fight inflation, just for balanced coverage?
@BB AEI?
i guess the debates didn't go well for the dems, therefore the liberal media needs to provide air coverage and damage control for their Democratic bedmates! November 8th will be an ugly night for you folks.
1
@Tino Lancellotti, hey - are you and BB from LA creating a travelling "Republican Comics Go Bonkers" show and taking it on the road?
Inflation is not controlled by the WH. It's dependent on real world factors; pandemic, worker shortages, supply chain problems, etc. Few R's voted for the Infrastructure bill, or CHIPS Act, or Inflation Reduction Act. They made no investments in the country - only passed the 2017 tax overhaul that created the largest deficits in history, not to mention the biggest tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. R's don't have a solution and will spend two years moaning and holding non-productive, finger-pointing hearings if they take Congress
21
Just saying "no" to everything sounds like a really effective plan.
Not.
14
Unless you were born yesterday, you’ve seen inflation, recessions, booms and busts come and go. And gas prices go up and down. What else is new? People on the political right claiming that elections were stolen with no evidence in hand, threatening the foundation of our democracy, that’s what. People on the political right giving a wink and a nod to violent extremism, that’s what. People on the political right taking away a woman’s hard won right to choose, that’s what. This growing trend on the right needs to be stopped, even if they could wave a magic wand and make our economic woes go away never to return (which they can’t). As difficult as it can sometimes be to weather economic storms, I’ll take them over creeping fascism any day.
28
You might be surprised to know that so few people understand that Republican policies are both anti-democratic (small d) AND economically nonsensical, that your comment is such a breath of fresh air.
As is widely recognized, inflation is a problem throughout western Europe and other parts of the world. Do Republicans blame Biden for all of that too? Will Republican policies lower the price of petrol in England?
17
This is their plan, reduce taxes on the rich. Its been 30 years, feeling any trickle down?
21
@ddrechse
LOL Britains Truss did that and their stock market crashed. This is all the GoP got give it all to the rich. My money is on the Dems. At least we will still have Social security aan medicare left.
Several leading economists have stated that the majority of inflation is due to CORPORATE GREED.
Think about it, while the rest of us are struggling, corporate America is raking in record profits and what does the GQP want to do? Reward them with more tax handouts on the backs of the middle class. Reward them with even more deregulation so they can finally finish off what's left of our planet...
Who ever thinks the economy is in better hands with the GQP is engaged in magical thinking. Look at history and the myth of voodoo economics and the absurd failure that is "trickle down" economics.
18
Reducing government spending and borrowing would help but sadly today’s Republicans can’t even do that.
3
@Simon K. How would that help solve the consumer-goods driven inflation bubble?
It always annoys me when politicians say that tax cuts "aren't paid for." That's totally backwards, nobody pays for tax cuts, it just means people can keep their money. It's the taxes that pay for the government. It would be more proper to say they are proposing to defund the government.
5
It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that R economic "policies" (i.e., tax cuts for corporations and 1%-ers) have never been successful. Never. Remember the "Laffer Curve" fiasco of Ronnie Ray-gun and GHWBush fame? Remember how often US workers have waited in vain for the trickle of the "trickle-down?" Rs are _still_ pushing this nonsense, and this is just what they'll try if given House majority in this election (as is looking likelier by the day). Why would any halfway intelligent voter think Rs will/can do anything at all about the current economic woes? I blame Ds' feckless campaigning for the fact that "independent" voters are now swinging to R in spite of the threat posed by Rs to US democracy.
9
It seems like they'll be hard-pressed to repeal bills already passed by the Biden administration, because Biden has the veto. I do worry about spiteful Republican in Congress holding the budget ceiling hostage. If they want to deflate the dollar around the world -- defaulting on our debt would do it.
3
I was in a wrestling match a long time ago and was pinned in an excruciatingly painful hold. I crawled off the mat and asked the coach what I should have done to get out of the hold. His words were memorable: "You just can't get into that one!!"
The Democrats were warned that helicoptering money on a supply constrained economy would kick off inflation. Larry Summers warned very clearly. Democrats vilified Sinema and Manchin for resisting spending, but they really spared us from a much worse situation.
"You just can't get into this one". There is no easy out. Just slow, painful, contraction until inflation is forced to subside.
1
Larry Summers advised Obama after the Great Recession. As result of his advices we had high unemployment for years. Seems to me, Summers want to replace the problem of inflation with problem of unemployment.
4
@Kurfco
You do realize that the inflation is global and the Dems did nothing to cause that.
The biggest cause of inflation is corporate greed. Notice they are raking in record profits while the rest of us struggle?
1
@Kurfco
No economist has blamed the American rescue plan or any of Biden's bills as the reason for inflation. Larry Summers even said so himself, that he worried it would make inflation worse, not that it would cause it, and continues to say that he can't tell us how much worse any of Biden's agenda has made inflation.
There is simply no evidence to show that is the case, especially since inflation is near double digits everywhere in the world.
And news flash, Biden isn't President everywhere in the world.
Care to give us Larry Summers explanation of how Biden's policies cause 9% inflation in the EU? Brazil? India?
Larry Summers, darling of the right wing apparently, wants a minimum base tax on large corporations and more funding for the IRS which the Republicans according to this article completely disagree with -and Biden either has already done or has already proposed.
So which is it? Is Larry right and we should do what he says (which is what Biden is doing) and the Republicans are wrong.... or is Larry wrong and we should do what the Republicans say?
This should be good.
1
Hey Jason Smith of MI on House Budget, how about the ‘historical spending spree of government’ Republicans have spent on tax cuts for themselves and their donors (Welfare for those who don’t need it.)? Why is it okay to repeat the same ‘trickle down’ economic package that has never worked under any Republican administration starting with Reagan? Why can’t the government spend funds to help the majority of people live their lives? You know things like the Biden administration has proposed like making the child tax credit permanent to lift 50 percent of children out if poverty? OR, help with healthcare,Social Security, childcare and public education that give everyone a fair chance to succeed? Jesus said ‘if you do for the least of these my brethren you do it unto me’. He also said, ‘Rich man beware, you can build bigger…, but this very night your soul may be required of you’. Justice will be served. The day of reckoning will come.
9
Another tax cut?
Liz Truss proposed it in Great Britain and she had to go.
Republicans are repeating their old mantra of cutting taxes (trickle down...) and people might give them the opportunity?
Come on. Not tired of being laughed at?
Once they go for the tax cut, Medicare and Social Security will be on the chopping block.
10
@Welcome Canada
"Once they go for the tax cut, Medicare and Social Security will be on the chopping block"
It is inevitable that those programs get reduced or go away. There is a dogged right wing that wants those programs gone.
1
When voters say, “I think republicans are better with the economy.” They are at least partially right. Republicans are better on the economy… for rich people and big corporations. Not so much for everyone else.
6
Didn't another country try the "beat inflation with tax cuts" tact recently?
6
Sounds like the Tories; cut taxes on the rich, slash benefits for the poor. Yup, that is a plan for success; NOT. Vote blue!
5
Despite 5 decades of trickle down economic failures, the next Republican handout to corporations and the wealthy will help average Americans. I can feel it in my bones.
8
An entire article that doesn't even inform readers WHAT the tax and spending cuts are! Constant references to Republican tax and spending cuts (which voters think is good) without mentioning the details of what they are (which voters would reject if they knew).
Tax cuts for billionaires. Spending cuts on Social Security, Medicare, and cuts to programs that help the middle class and poor and that the middle class LIKES! These two reporters would certainly feel like that would be too "biased" to tell voters what the policy actually is!
4
We are not a nation made up of people who have empathy. That is who we are.
As long as social spending is seen as benefiting African Americans, the GOP will always have an issue that will get wide spread support.
I believe if America was not as diverse, it would have a more European stye social system.
2
As a moderate Democrat, who has never voted Republican, this is starting to look like a "lesser of the two evils situation." Do I trust self-serving Republican tax cuts? No. But I also see rampant, uncontrolled Democrat spending. Yesterday's excellent Ezra Klein column, detailing the billions of state and federal stimulus dollars California is spending building high-priced apartments for homeless in places like Venice Beach, is a perfect example. The Democrats, amazingly, seem to think higher taxes and throwing money at problems is the fix. A vote against their agenda may be the only way to slow, not stop, inflation.
2
@David L.
If the choice is between tax cuts and high unemployment /a recession to fight inflation
or building homes for the homeless and battling inflation with interest rate hikes (the only way to actually fight it)
I'm going to go with building homes for the homeless.
That's just me, feel free to make your own choice.
4
The federal government has no weapons to affect the economy. They can move interest rates and admit that a change in interest rates will take years to influence inflation. We are a society that believes it is capitalist, ignoring that just about every large corporation (GM, Chrysler, AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, on and on) we’re bailed out by the US government. Many took the money and built infrastructure in Mexico or China. Financial markets succeed because more people succeed than fail. Markets where money cannot be made (e.g. flood insurance) are left to the government. We bail out private corporations when the fail, and allow them to make profits and kill US jobs when things are going good for the Wall Street Casino. Now all the word on the street about the election is “It’s the economy stupid!” If you want a good economy let the government control financial markets. Remember, the world was going to fall apart when we went off the gold standard. The economy is us!
3
The issue is NOT that Republicans can get us out of the inflationary spiral. Biden is still in office, and his feeble ignorance will keep us in it.
The issue IS that Republicans can stop it from getting worse.
Democratic policies got us here. That is a proven and visible fact. (Inflation began and then claimed during Biden's administration.)
Republican policies likely will stop the increase.
Either way, we are in for a rough two years as a recession hits us hard.
The only silver lining to a recession is that Biden will get the well-deserved blame and will likely assure a Republican president in 2024.
Democrats are about to become a political minority, and hopefully, it will last many years. Never before have Republicans been so well positioned to take the House, the Senate, and in two years, the Presidency while also enjoying a conservative court.
And Musk takes Twitter private just at the right time. What grand timing that is.
The next several years will hopefully slap the woke left so hard they crawl back into their mom's basement and think about the damage they've done to our culture and our country.
I think it's all wonderful.
@Michael Balter
Then can you explain why the inflation is GLOBAL?
Dems certainly don't have that much power!
2
@Michael Balter Be careful what you wish for.
1
"Conservative economists say the inflation impact of extending Mr. Trump’s tax cuts could be much smaller, because those extensions could lead businesses to invest more." Supply-side economics. It's been proved false over the last forty years. Repeatedly. But still the GOP trots it out, and still the media faithfully repeat it, as if it weren't the worst arrant nonsense. It is objectively arrant nonsense.
The GOP is literally pledging to do what Liz Truss just did, which resulted in the most epic face-plant in the modern history of developed nations. And the best the media can do is report that "experts" are dubious. Man, I'm not an expert, but I've been reading the papers for forty years and I know these people are dangerous lunatics.
6
The Republicans have NO plans to fight inflation, so of course they won’t work.
6
“It is unlikely that any of the policies proposed by Republicans would meaningfully reduce inflation in 2023, when rapidly rising prices will still be a major problem for the economy and for consumers,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Republicans--listen to your own people, not the blabbermouth politician presentlhy representing your party in Congress, but the knowledgeable people who understand economics.
Republicans in Congress will lower corporate taxes--taking your money to make up the difference. Really, don't you ever learn?
4
Any chance these are the same economists who told us a thousand times that inflation wasn't real or would be transitory at worst?
How can a profession be so consistently caught out and still be taken seriously as meaningful prognosticators?
1
@JD Gold the article cites a range of economists
And there you go again. Repeating Republucan talking points right out of the gate. Why do you insist on doing that? "the public holds Biden responsible"? No, we don't! Those of us who understand what causes inflation, what really causes inflation do not hold Biden responsible. Biden has done almost everything an American President can do to curb inflation. And he has done these things in spite of Republican actions to stop him. When will you learn that Republicans are liars. They don't care what really happens to Americans. They just say that. Nothing they have ever done, like cut taxes or spending has ever delivered the promised outcome. They have a track record of failure. And now you talk about their plan and question how it might not work? No kidding. And yet for a year you let Republicans spew lies about Biden.
In Oregon the Biden plan to help the chip industry will bring billions to Oregon and help us secure a conductor chip industry free of China. But Oregon, thanks to TV repeating lies about inflation's causes, may very well vote for a Christian Nationalist and ruin both Oregon and the nation's opportunity for conductor independence. Billions of dollars needed to increase production will go up in Red state greed and jealousy, along with thousands of good paying jobs. Just like when McConnell destroyed our aluminum industry to protect Kentucky from fair competition, Republicans will claim they care while taking real wealth from the middle class.
7
Didn’t Liz Truss just try these same things with disastrous consequences? She was gone in days; with our system, we’d not be so lucky.
2
I can't keep track but can the NY Times confirm if these are the same economists who told us there was no inflation? Or that it was low? Or that it was transitory?
@SJG one example: the article cites an AEI economist, not an administration economist or the Federal Reserve
The economy runs in cycles. The real art of politics is timing the ups and downs so your guy/gal/whatever is in charge when the “up” hits. “What are you specifically going to do to halt inflation”? Stupid question. Might as well follow up with, “what is electricity”? They have no chance, but at least Democrats try. Republicans have no answers except, “”it’s the Democrat’s fault”. In a year or so, inflation will have taken care of itself. The question is, will a democrat still be in the White House or will timing and luck favor the Republican?
2
Am i crazy or is everything the GOP is proposing likely to increase inflation or do nothing not decrease it?
It seems like the GOP sing the same tune as the solution no matter what is happening economically.
Inflation? Lower corporate taxes
Deflation? Lower corporate taxes
Supply chain issues? Lower corporate taxes
Climate disasters? Lower corporate taxes
Massive economic inequality? Lower taxes…
5
The GOP's permanent, all-purpose miracle policy: cut taxes on the rich, gut the IRS, and, of course, gerrymander districts, state and congressional, and denounce election fraud (also known as when Democrats win). And not least, they have their heads-in-the-sand denial of the climate crisis. The Republicans are not conservative, for they will conserve nothing; instead, they are pillaging and burning down the future.
4
few economists that the NY Times chose to ask.
the Dems spent $1T just as covid was waning, and the supply chains were mucked up. Silly kids. Don't they understand Economics 101 ?
Meanwhile, the continue to pretend it didn't happen.
Biden has blocked natural gas pipelines, oil and gas drilling, permits onshore and offshore, and announced he will destroy the fossil fuel industry. Meanwhile, energy capital expenditures thus falling, and prices up up up.
Natural gas is a relatively clean fuel. And, it is a main input for key types of fertilizer. Food insecurity is growing, and prices up up up, partly due to fertilizer input costs of ag production. Short sighted polices harming us all.
Meanwhile, he begs OPEC, Iran and even Venezeuala to produce more. He doesn't encourage or allow further US exploration or production. Why does he dislike American jobs and American cash flow? Short sighted? Pandering? You decide.
Are you better off than two years ago?
1
“....voters do not seem to be demanding details from Republicans “
Quick- gotta check out James Corden doing car karaoke with Ye! MUCH more important and fun than trying to understand the dynamics of the American economy. Or vetting Republican plans to make your life better.
America is stupid. If you don’t like inflation, send the fed back all the money you got during the pandemic. Don’t like high gas prices? Buy oil company stocks that are enjoying record profits.
Yes the way back to prosperity is by cutting the social safety net, medicare, social security. Bring back trickle down economics by letting corporations make more profits ‘cause they ALWAYS use profits for investing in manufacturing and paying higher wages.
Oops gotta go! Elon and Ye are in a twitter fight! Can’t miss that!
3
The MAGA Party promotes policies that will lead us into a dystopian future using lies and conspiracy theories. They want a king, not a democracy.
4
Republicans have no plans to deal with inflation, high prices, food and housing costs, etc. Have you heard what Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Greene want to do if they control the House? Those are the plans they have to deal with inflation and high prices. Grievance and revenge politics. With Donald Trump pulling their puppet strings. And yet the Republicans are in a great position to take over the House as punishment for Joe Biden and his actions. Incredible. The Biden Administration, while certainly not perfect and having made its share of mistakes, has tried greatly to keep our country on a forward moving path. The Republicans have no plans to deal with the issues our country is facing yet they are poised to take the House and unleash their grievance and revenge show. Donald Trump has said an ignorant and uncaring voter is one of his greatest assets. On this point, he is absolutely correct.
2
Did the GOP pay no attention at all to Liz Truss? Let's hope voters see through these "trickle down" con artists.
3
The dirty little secret of Republican economic policy - unlike other inflationary periods, more than 50% of current inflation problem is corporate profiteering.
Eliminating the Trump tax holiday on corporate profits would have a larger effect on reducing inflation, than additional Fed Rate increases.
1
Democrats STINK at messaging this. It's the GOP that has gotten us into this mess via its tax cuts, Trump's denial of the dangers of Covid, and Trump's kid-glove treatment of Putin, which emboldened him to invade Ukraine and destroy the world economy. Biden and the Dems could do NOTHING to prevent the effects of Covid and Russia's warmongering -- but no Democrat is saying that. What they need to be saying is: "The GOP got us into this mess, they have no plan to get us out, and while they're in power they're going to federalize abortion restrictions, undo plans to address climate change, further restrict voting rights, and continue to pass out favors to the rich -- at your expense. Do you really want that America?" But they're not saying that. Democrats are their own worst enemy sometimes.
2
Republicans only care about inflation when there is a Democrat in the White House. When there is a Republican President, they revel in inflation because it makes their donors richer,
2
This is the first article in the NYT to even hint that maybe... Republicans DO NOT have a solution to today's unique global inflation.
It is journalistic malpractice to never ask the GOP how they would solve a problem; this or any other one.
1
I am not aware of ANY economists quoted in the NYT that meet the NYT's description here of "on either end of the idealogical spectrum". Instead we read NYT stories saying that, on the one hand, it makes no sense to let higher earning folks keep more of their earnings because they won't spend it and help the economy.... and, on the other hand (in this article), that it makes no sense to let higher earning folks keep more of their earnings because they'll just spend it and drive up inflation.
So, which is it, gentlemen?
2
These R’s are proposing the same old, tired economic policies they always propose: tax cuts for the wealthy and spending cuts for the working and middle class. Voodoo seems to be their religion. What nonsense. At least real Vodun has practical purposes.
1
Lemme guess, the tax cuts will “pay for themselves”. And the wmd’s really are in Iraq, and Trump will be releasing his tax returns any day now. Blah, blah, blah. The gop just keeps repeating the same nonsense that tax cuts are somehow the answer to every problem despite four decades of solid evidence to the contrary. Culture warriors with no policies. Not getting this independent’s vote.
1
'Safety net' programs, as long as our current odious social and economic inequities persist, are esential in assisting the poor, no matter how backwards republican thinking is, by promising to control prices by lowering the taxes, especially for the 'rich and powerful. There is too much at play here, for as long as 'we' accept as "normal" the segregation in jobs and housing, health care and education, and now in 'goods and services' whose rising cost may be due -at least in part- to greed. Trickle-down economics, as peddled by republicans is stupid and a repeat of failed Reaganism. Santayana's teaching (learn from past mistakes, so not to repeat them) seems to be falling on deaf ears.
1
When it comes to the inflation, voting for the current admin is letting the (manic) arsonists handle the wildfires.
They spent monies last year far exceeding the maxim 'apres moi la deluge'. Well. 'la deluge' it is, and hopefully it will wash the current Dems far away to the open seas.
Tax cuts for billionaires floats all yachts and offshore bank accounts. Republicans are the party of exploding federal deficits and tax cheats.
2
Let's be clear.... The 'inflationary spending' was jump started during Covid was done by Trump and the republicans as a 2020 election vote buying move.
When Republicans talk about restraining government spending, they are talking about cutting programs that help the working poor, seniors and kids. Oh and infrastructure... enjoy clean water and bridges that dont fall down? Forget those.
Repealing corporate taxes is not going to help a --- thing. Did minimum wage increase for the decades that corporations paid record low taxes so that working families could make ends meet or when it was voted into law at the state levels? Most corporations take their extra money and payout their shareholders and C-Suite execs not their workforce.... Does Jeff Bezos or Walton family need more money or does your family?
When you look at the numbers, the economy has preformed better historically under Democrat presidents. Republicans just better at gaslighting the American people.
6
Republicans railing against inflation is a hoot!!! isn't the cause of inflation just the free market economy and capitalism working as it should? Isn't capitalism and the free market economy the mighty alters on which republicans worship?
Hypocrisy is running rampant these days, and republicans are leading the race.
19
@NYChap
Sorry, but no. petroleum prices increased (i.e. "inflation") because we were in a situation of extremely low prices due to a pandemic when no one was using using it (no traveling-no flying, driving, etc.) and demand was non existent. So prices dropped and petroleum companies turned off supply to stop losing money. Gas wasn't cheap during Trump because of his policies; it was because demand was so low due to the pandemic.
Now we are "back to normal", and guess what, you can't just turn on petroleum like your water facet. It takes time, people, and money. So while we are waiting for the petroleum companies to get back up to speed, inventory drops, demand goes up, and so do prices. Lets throw in some refinery shut downs and a war from a major global supplier for good measure. And the desire of countries and companies that produce petroleum to MAKE MONEY. INFLATION is capitalism and free market economy, pure and simple. If you don't like it, well then there's always socialism and communism (true communism, not that any country every has actually had true communism ever) with the price controls that come with that for you that take into account "the good of society".... Biden's "repeal" (really? What exactly did he repeal, last I saw our petroleum output is more than ever) of Trumps "energy policy" had nothing to do with it. Its thanks to Biden's policies that gas isn't 10 bucks a gallon.
Enjoy capitalism! If what you want is in demand you will pay....
@Simon K.
I think people stayed home to stop spreading a disease that was causing our hospitals to overflow but whatever....I know my area's emergency rooms had people in hallways and parking lots
@Brian
Plain and simple for you as I can be. Trump is not responsible for inflation at these levels, Joe Biden is. I do not have to get fancy, but I know what I saw and how prices began to increase after Joe Biden repealed Trump's energy policies. That is what caused run away record inflation such as we have not seen in over 40 years.
Lies, Lies and more lies.
The same old Republican hogwash and the same suckers will lap it up again.
A good dose of Trussonomics will set the country up.
Tax cuts for the wealthy to continue and trickle down to the masses from on high.
Good luck America!!
20
Once again: Something is trickling down, but it ain’t prosperity. Note MY address.
26
Whip inflation now. Stop buying stuff.
8
@Guiseppi741 - and stop working too, since we can use the money, why working for it ?
Republicans couldn’t care less about inflation.
They are only concerned with grifting.
Republicans care as much about inflation as Trump did about Covid.
41
9 of the 10 poorest states in the US votre republican for generations !
Any questions ?
26
@MD. Actually, many of those states (including Oklahoma) were solid Democratic states until the 1960s, when Democrats from the North allied with Rockefeller Republicans passed civil rights legislation. Then began the slow transformation of those states into conservative Republican states. It was always about race.
9
@Ockham9, Actually, much like political party division between normal Republicans and maga rinos today, back then it was northern Democrats and southern Dixiecrats. Dixiecrats who would become Republican because they disagreed with the "social" issues (equality, civil rights) at the time. Today, Republicans are still trying to pervert the civil rights of fellow Americans as a means to force their personal idealogy into their personal lives!
Their "plans" would destroy the economy. Period
16
When is America going to wake up to being "bribed" by Congress and our Presidents? Cutting taxes is giving us OUR money back. Most of us seem happy to get checks in the mail, yet we propose no solutions to the reality that the US Government is the largest debtor in the history of the world. A very painful day of reckoning may be coming soon. We have been fooled by our Corporatocry! Democrats and Rebublicans are the same - we're fiscally irresponsible with someone else's money.
Republicans care more about cozying up to greedy corporations and Big Oil than they do about hard-working American families. Every single one of the
@HouseGOP voted against reducing gas prices. #RepublicansArePriceGougers
11
This GOP plan sounds a lot like the plan that got UK PM Liz Truss fired.
Can we fire GOP? King George III is sounding better than the GOP at this point.
16
I continue to believe that if everyday voters, from both right and left, would just listen to what the republicans are saying, the democrats would win "bigly".
13
@scott haskell For that to happen we need the media to report accurately, none of this both-sides/horse race nonsense.
Denouncing inflation is like denouncing terrorism or child abuse.
5
The GOP has no plan. If they do, let's hear it.........
They complain constantly. Is it Biden's fault that most of the world is suffering through high inflation, high gas prices, high heating bills? Is it Biden's fault that the pandemic disrupted supply chains that are still not back to normal?
Nope. No. Not a chance.
The Democrats do not do a good job marketing themselves. And the GOP lies a lot.
13
More like it, NYT. Relatively few Republican voters read our paper, but from this faithful reader it has seemed your reporting has focused primarily on an “inevitable” ascent of insurrectionist GOP candidates, rather than whatever paper-tiger policies they may have, if any. Cutting taxes is not a plan; it’s a tempting carrot dangled in front of a short-sighted electorate.
10
If you want to see what GOP tax cuts for the rich - which is their only real public policy - do to an economy, take a look across the pond to Britain and see what happened their.
That country's national finances collapsed at the very thought of such incompetence, cruelty and bankrupt public policy.
Tax cuts for the rich are adding gasoline to the inflation fire and they explode the deficits because the GOP NEVER actually cuts expenses.
This nation's national debt is almost completely attributable to the GOP's 40-year tax-cutting recklessness charged to the national credit card.
All the GOP does with their tax cuts for the rich is create inflationary investment bubbles that pop and crush everyone else with recession and Depressions.
All the GOP tax cuts with their tax cuts for the rich is allow the rich and private equity to buy up the nation's housing stock and rent it back to public at inflated prices, thereby making inflation worse and housing unaffordable.
And what expenses will the GOP cut ???
Social Security ?
Medicare ?
Medicaid ?
Defense ?
Zero details and zero answers from the Tax Cut For The Rich Party.
And they want to Defund The IRS, which would bankrupt the country since the IRS funds the national government.
The Republican Party is the most fiscally reckless, irresponsible party in this country's history.
If you like what Liz Truss and the 'Conservatives' did to Britain's economy, you will love the damage the GOP does to the American economy.
13
@Socrates - exactly ! That is why the latest policy of my own is to vote for GOP for the state and local jobs to lower the costs of living, but vote for the democrats for the president and Congress for protecting the important things you mentioned.
theocracy and bigotry will get you to heaven, but won't help the economy. they should barricade themselves inside megachurches and wait for the rapture and leave decent folk alone.
3
The definition of Republicanism? Pure and straight forward:
“Drug Innovation Protection Act.”
Google this and you will see the light, unless you’re a propagandized fool that is.
This is a simple definition of Republicanism.
Biden was slow to react to inflation, because he didn’t think it was a big threat. He was listening to wrong people and now the GOP is capitalizing on it.
1
@Marcy everyone kniws inflation is a threat. But it is worldwide and no single head of state can control it. Moreover corporations are using inflation as an excuse to raise prices as they reap record profits.
@Marcy Biden or any other president for that matter can do little about inflation. It is the Fed that has to do the heavy lifting here. They're on it.
Inflation is a world-wide phenomenon at the moment and jacking up the rates will only go so far to fix it, at least in the near term.
Investing in infrastructure and alternative energy generation is the right idea. It will just take way too long for the effects to become apparent to matter for any election. By the time that happens whoever is in power will simply claim the credit.
If by some stroke of bad luck for this country, republicans take the House or Senate, we can count on them to "take from the poor and give to the rich" ... Obama called this "Romneyhood" and it is so true. The GOP and Reagan gave us the tax on social security, hitting some of the poorest in our country with a tax they can ill afford.
9
Republicans just get the message out better. Yes, they are not any better at being fiscally responsible then the Dems, but they are out there on radio, tv, and debates with consistent messaging (yes of course they plan this from the top) that Dems are reckless spenders, are WOKE, soft on crime, support the fictional CRT, and don't care about the little guy. The GOP definitely does not care about the little guy but does a good job of telling everyone they do.
Dems need to fight back hard and challenge the GOP every time they tell lies and use scare tactics, but we don't or we don't have a consistent message. That is why things will not go well for Dems on Nov 7th.
3
Apparently the only things that Republicans are adept at is insurrection, supporting a twice-impeached illiterate gangster, and passing tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
We're still waiting for that "great, great Republican health care plan, folks" that Trump and the Republicans promised — SEVEN YEARS AGO!
They are completely disinterested in the American experiment. They want it to fail, and they are actively working to ensure that it fails.
4
Did Liz Truss get US citizenship and run for Senate when I wasn't looking?
Gee, I can't wait for THAT recession here in the States. It's going to make 2008 look like an economic boom by comparison.
1
Tax cuts for the rich and cuts in government spending are not good enough. Republicans don't have a solution because they were too busy supporting trump's fraudulent scheme to steal the election.
3
Republicans want to reduce the power of the unions - that would seem to put a brake on inflation.
1
The inflation issue is a code word for these ulterior-motive-driven folks. A little bit of research and thorough thinking reveals the game, which is this:
Hey, you! Just remember that the prices you pay ... well, we control those prices ... so if you want the prices to go down, you have to step in line and vote for us or else.
So think it through and recognize what really counts. The future these ulterior-motive-driven folks are offering is nothing but a big puff of smoke and they've aimed it directly at people they do not like.
So vote as if your life depends on it, because it does. VOTE for people who want peace (no violence) and a marketplace that everyone can participate in. VOTE for people who want to take care of the least among us, those who need a little help. VOTE!
2
Republicans need a reminder that a lot of our current inflationary problems started under their god, Trump. In spite of what trump says, these problems would be double what they are now under trump. Re-electing him will bring on 4 years of neglect while he collects revenge on all the people who do not support him (some 82mil of us).
4
As this article illustrates, voters are largely ignorant of the parties' economic plans and will vote based on gut feelings, stereotypes, and whatever disinformation appeals to them on social media. Republicans are banking on voter ignorance and I see little indication that they will lose this bet. The periodic articles in the Times in which voters are interviewed show one common theme - lack of information on the part of the voting public. Our democracy is in jeopardy largely because voters are too apathetic to educate themselves to the extent necessary to cast an intelligent vote.
4
Trickledown has never helped the middle class and poor. England was cognizant of that fact and drove the PM out of office for attempting it there.
6
They believe in lies...voodoo economics...their way of getting the Dems. Inflation is everywhere now, spurred on by the money thrown into the money market because of the Ukraine for one thing. This was inevitable, inflation that is. And no one suffers more than the weaker economies. We are just in the same boat...Biden did not cause this. Spending before Biden was not low either, just as Andrew says for one it was for less needy and I abhor that.
Please remember that the GOP will claim that since they're not in charge of the White House, obviously their "economic plan" (which seems kinda' oxymoronic to me, y'know?) won't work 'cuz The President won't allow it.
So they CAN throw out any wild plans, knowing that they will be blocked by POTUS....whom they can then blame during the runup to the '24 elections.
I'm thinking that oughta' be at least a little worrisome for the Democrats. Just sayin'....
2
Plans? What plans? There is only one plan to reduce inflation:
STOP! PRINTING! MONEY!
And if there is not enough money to spend, stop spending!
Does that sound simplistic? Well, don't take it from me, listen to the Nobel Prize-winning economist who specialized in monetary theory, Milton Friedman,
"Inflation is, always and everywhere, a monetary phenomenon."
The anti democracy Rs have no plans except to NOT HAVE DEBATES FOR THE PRESEDENTIAL RACE IN 2024.
They won't admit that Trump blew the China sorgum deal and tariffed almost every products by 25%. Then he lied to Americans that China would pay THE TARIFF not consumers. Tariffs are TAXES. Then he put all farmers and fishermen on WELFARE. That started it. 50.000 truck drivers died of Covid.
And 500,000 with jobs also died. It is hard to find workers to make products or ship them. It won't last but it wasn't Biden's fault at all. But he has plans and they are working.
5
Republican economic policies are a scam and a sham. Republicans are incompetent and incapable of managing the economy successfully. For over 40 years, the only Republican "solution" to any economic problem was to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations. To shovel our tax dollars upwards into the accounts of those who don't need it, don't deserve it, and won't spend it. As a result, we have the largest income and wealth inequality in a century.
Republicans have one long-standing economic goal- to destroy the working of the government and sell it off piecemeal for the benefit of the 1%. Republicans are also hungry to destroy Social Security and Medicaid by privatizing it and handing it over to Wall Street. Remember George W. Bush's brilliant plan to do that? Shortly before the economic crash of 2008? Well, Kevin McCarthy is looking to do the exact same thing.
Inflation is an issue but it is not permanent, and it's already decreasing. Putting Republicans in charge of anything at this point would only cause permanent damage to our economy and crucial programs like Social Security. Voting Republican is fiscal insanity.
6
@Dominic
what policies? saying NO to everything isn't a policy.
2
This comment is in response to @lizannes ad her comment that,
'There seems to be very little coverage of growing corporate profits, a major factor in driving up costs.'
Corporations and businesses in general price their goods and service according to costs, but even more so according to what the market will bear. Coming out of the pandemic, household savings were high and many people were spared homelessness or bankruptcy due to Covid rescue funds. For several years, many people also went without expensive vacations. (And, news flash, Covid isn't over yet.)
So, to the extent rising rents and housing costs are 'affordable,' and people are clamoring for goods and services, they'll be asked to pay more. Add in supply constraints from Chinese lockdowns and the Russian war against Ukraine, and you have a toxic stew of inflationary pressures. These probably won't fully abate until we go through a recession and the current Russian government collapses.
And did I mention pandemic mismanagement by the TFG? His reign of error dug a far deeper economic hole than was necessary, and, as an added bonus, he and his fellow travelers unnecessarily killed off many hundreds of thousands of our fellows Americans.
There are lots of lessons to be learned in preparation for the next pandemic. Let's hope we still have a functioning democracy and public health system the next time it really matters.
3
A plan? The Republicans can’t even spell plan, let alone implement one.
Remember trump’s plan for covid? Of course not, there was none. Oh yeah, bleach.
5
Plans?
2
“Conservative economists say the inflation impact of extending Mr. Trump’s tax cuts could be much smaller, because those extensions could lead businesses to invest more, people to work more and growth to increase across the economy. They also say Republicans could help relieve price pressures, particularly for electricity and gasoline, by following through on their proposals to reduce federal regulations governing new energy development.”
None of this is supported by the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017 so why are these baseless, anonymous arguments being given credence?
6
Basically give the rich tax cuts and pollute the environment. Classic.
2
As I recall, corporate leaders used most of Trump's tax cuts to buy back their stocks and thus raise stock prices. Not much trickle down there.
So let me see if I have this right. The GOP will:
1. Cut social program spending from Medicare and Medicaid, food safety, environmental safety, etc.
2. Dramatically increase defense spending to offset savings on any the above.
3. Make permanent tax cuts to corporations and wealthy individuals, even though many corporations are off-shoring their profits and the top 1% are living off carried interest and loans against their stock. Thereby claiming essentially zero income on taxes.
4. Still say they are for the working man and woman irregardless of their actions in the item above.
Does that about sum it up?
21
@Paul No, that does not sum it up at all.
1. You are assuming facts not in evidence which means you are merely fantasizing
2. All money is fungible. You cannot really solve an offshoring situation with regulations.
3. You wish to cut defense spending?
Now, that about sums up your points.
@Robert Avant
1. I can't be fanatizing on #1 and #2 given they are standing GOP talking points.
2. Tax laws are essentially regulations. So, companies can't be taxed on global profits?
3. I worked for an extremely large defense contractor for a decade. Yes, the defense budget needs to be cut. The waste over procurement whims and failed projects is enormous.
4. The US spends an estimated $778 billion on defense. That's 3.08x the Chinese estimate. If we only spent 3x that amount, the difference would be about $67.9 billion less. So, our military would be successful if we spent $710 billion instead and diverted the $67.9 billion to say infrastructure repairs, better hospice care for our aging end-of-life parents, or maybe orphanges for all those unwanted children the GOP says they will take care of. They'll need housing, food, education, clothing and medical care. Don't forget about them. Or are you stepping up to adopt orphans? I have two adoptees. Do you have any?
1
It's too easy to sit on the sidelines and throw darts at the economy. People need to realize is that much of the inflation was caused by the GOP's mis-management of supply chain issues during the pandemic. Biden inherited an economy on the brink, and he's finally got things moving in the right direction - even as compared to the rest of the world. Let's keep it going.
And BTW, didn't the UK just attempt tax cuts on the wealthy with disastrous results?
I for one would rather not be sitting here a year from now saying "I told you so." Get it right the first time ... it's peoples' lives and livelihoods you're dealing with here.
12
@Richard Totally agree. America was not prepared for the impacts from the pandemic. It was years of mismanagement from both parties and we're paying for it now.
Pre. Biden has made some mistakes (IMHO) but, overall, doing well and we'll come out this stronger.
Voters need to realize that the GOP doesn't have any solutions and will only continue questionable policies, if elected.
2
@Rick Thanks. IMO, Joe's done well in very trying times.
They just need use the same economists the Democrats we’re using when they insisted against All evidence that inflation would be transitory.
1
@Larry Thiel Absolutely not "against ALL evidence" at all. Some economists the Democrats were listening to said inflation could only be transitory and some said it probably wouldn't. The point is that rates were raised too quickly during the 2008 financial crisis, lowering economic growth, which lead to the problems lasting longer than they should have then, and the Federal Reserve, which is independent of the Democratic administration, wanted to avoid that situation again so they were not so quick to raise rates.
1
I find it comical that voters believe republicans could or would do anything to stop inflation. They're a one trick pony party, because the only idea to everything is tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts to programs most impactful to the middle and lower class. It doesn't matter the economic climate or state of the country, their only "solution" is tax cuts. Part of me hopes that republicans take both the house and senate, because my hope is republicans who live in red states that depend on unemployment, medicare, social security, fema (hurriance states), obamacare all feel the pain of what a republican majority will do to those programs.
7
Republicans are never good at helping the economy. They only have one policy. Cut taxes. No matter the circumstances good times or bad. Every Republican President since Reagan has done the same thing. Which eventually lead to deficits and the economy collapses. They claim Democrats tax and spend. They never cut spending but add to usually spending on the military. Every Democrat since Clinton had to come into office and clean up the economic mess the Republican administration left. The economy always does better under Democratic administration. The one thing Republicans have us that people actually believe the idea Republicans are fiscally responsible.
8
@Ansapphire54 Wut? Have you checked your 401(k) since Biden got in?
None of this is very difficult to understand. Putting more money into the economy is inflationary whether by lowering taxes or giving people checks. Trickle down economics has been proven not to work, including by David Stockman who designed the plan for Reagan.
With regard to spending, the Republicans are basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Working around the edges looking for fraud and abuse, while useful, won’t make a difference in a multi-trillion dollar budget. The big costs are military and entitlements. Entitlements help the average person. The military largely helps the military industrial complex. Since the republicans won’t touch those expenses, they are just con artists trying to maintain power. Their stewardship has repeatedly hurt our nation. But most people are not able to interpret the data, so we get the government we deserve, whether we like it or not.
11
If too much spending (demand) relative to supply is the root cause on inflation, why don’t we (the people/consumer) call for a National period of self imposed austerity? I thinking one month of a spending “chill” should do the job. Just like gas prices during Covid, I suspect prices will drop quickly. What do we have to loose?
1
I wonder if, when the Republicans show that they cannot fix ANY of the problems we face after they take over the House, Senate, and the Oval office, their voters will see the truth about them and finally vote them out?
3
@Ayecaramba
Never will happen...
1
@Ayecaramba Sadly, no, there doesn’t seem to be any point where their loyal base will admit they have been duped. Instead, they will just continue to try and blame Dems, Joe & Hunter Biden, AOC, progressives, defund the police, etc. Basically anything except for their own terrible policies.
Also, it’s going to get harder to vote them out as well, as the Trump loyalists refuse to accept it when they lose.
1
Every single political ad that I have seen from a Republican denounces their Democrat opponent over the issue of inflation. But they NEVER say what they are going to do differently to solve that problem. Admittedly, Democrats often play the same game in their advertisements, and I'm pretty disgusted by politics in general. But voting for someone who pushes the obviously false narrative that the election was stolen would be like choosing to sail with a captain who likes to steer towards icebergs rather than a captain who steers away from them. I'm not going to do that, and I don't get why anyone would. But many people will.
6
It is quite clear the Biden and the government contributed massively to the inflation issue.
To those that argue it's not the current President's fault , I counter: "ok, so why were some able to so clearly and confidently predict inflation and interest rates sharp rise?" The signs were so clear, and yes, the policies were disastrous.
this sums it up, I wrote it long ago: Inflation is being driven by fiscal as well as monetary policy. The massive spending bills that gave out all those stimmy checks, stimulated demand by design. Most of that money went to random folks that had not actually even lost work or income. Retirees, young people living on their mom's couches bought jet skis and bitcoin and new couches.
Higher demand shifts supply:demand equilibriums, resulting in higher prices (exacerbated by supply chain constraints).
Policies that inhibit new supply of oil and natural gas exacerbated shortages and directly drove up prices. And, inhibited new copper, new coal, new refineries, new lithium mining, new rare earth metals...
We are all paying for that with higher gasoline prices, higher electricity prices, and higher food prices.
Fertilizer costs and prices are directly tied to natural gas, fyi. The coming food scarcity is being driven by extremely high input costs including fertilizer, tractor parts, diesel fuel, transportation costs. Scary.
Tragic unintended consequences of green rules
@Joe You ...Please inform yourself.
Inflation is higher in the EU than in the U.S. . The present inflation is a global phenomena not a local one.
The price of oil is determined by international supply and demand not by how much oil the U.S. produces. The U.S, does not have an oil shortage and in fact we are a net exporter of oil.
Before you solve a problem it is important to correctly identify the cause.
1
Can anyone name anything that Republicans have done for the country or average Americans??
Everything they do is meant to make themselves and their rich friends richer.
Their solution, once again is to give more tax cuts to the rich to speed up the trickle down.
I guess it has worked for at least fifty years, so as long as people keep falling for it, why not??
8
I think that the Republicans rely too much on the flawed Milton Friedman supply side economic system. Its central feature is to reinforce the biblical era ethic “what is mine is mine, and what is thine is thine, so long as I don’t have to pay for it.” Tax cuts, especially to the rich, are designed to increase “what is mine”, and federal spending cuts are designed to decrease “what is thine”.
Trickle down benefits were always a disingenuous selling point, relying solely on Portia’s soliloquy about the quality of mercy in The Merchant of Venice.
1
Seems to me this article has buried the lede by not pointing out until well into the second half that the spending cuts that Republicans want to adopt and are threatening to insist upon by refusing to increase the debt limit are cuts to the social safety net, including Medicare and Social Security. Any article that purports to talk about "their plans" and does not put those specific plans front and center is doing a disservice to readers.
4
Why do so many middle and lower middle class citizens vote against their own self interest? The GOP serves nigh net worth individuals and the business ownership class. To them, the common working stiff is just an expense on a spreadsheet. Their talk about going after Medicare and Social Security should frighten all retirees of very modest means….. and we haven’t even touched their hated issue of confronting global warming, or their attempts at manipulating the vote to seize power.
6
The GOP is absolutely guaranteeing a recession if they make good on their threat on not agreeing to a debt ceiling increase in this latest version of political blackmail. They will own it. It's up to Democrats to remind Americans of that.
5
Does anyone, especially voters remember Reagan's stock market crash, Bush's real estate market crash, Bush's almost complete destruction of our economy with a GREAT RECESSION, why in god's name would we trust them on the economy ever, their perenial solution is to give their rich friends tax cuts, but they've never in the 70 years of my life had a viable economic plan that benefitted anyone but the rich. Reagan and his republicans were successful in taxing our social security benefits!
They have proven their incompetence on the economy and the world stage.
8
Back in the late 70s and early 80s there was a two pronged approach to the stagflation unleashed by LBJ and sermonized over by a Georgia farm boy. Paul Volker jacked up fed funds rates well beyond to inflation rate which cratered inflation. At the same time deregulation and tax cuts created a perfect environment to dramatically increase supply in the economy. Great combintion.
Withe the Biden Administration the late Jimmy Breslin would have a sterling example for his "The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight".
A word to all of you older conservatives or independents voting for Republicans this fall: issues like inflation, abortion and your resistance to America’s growing diversity won’t matter much when they reduce or eliminate your Medicare and Social Security. Think about that for a moment.
10
@LIChef Well said! Kudos to you for enlightening the masses, many of whom will blindly vote GOP without pondering the consequences.
Denouncing inflation is not a platform. Voodoo economics is not a platform. And being at the center of the first and only effort by any U.S. president to overturn an election and obstruct the peaceful transition of power, ultimately culminating in a bloody attack on our own Capitol and on the Congress itself is also not a platform.
8
No kidding.
Republicans complain about everything, but they don't have any concrete policy ideas to actually solve those problems.
The real question is why anyone would be surprised by this revelation!
5
@Andy In Tuxon
I guess they trust Margery Taylor Green will have all the answers. Assisted by Boebert, America will be in great shape!
What else is new!
GOP is very good at CRITICIZING the Democrat legislative and economic agenda but they can NEVER come up with their own comprehensive economic plan to assist ordinary Americans.
GOP leaders offer only one macroeconomic proposal: Tax cuts for the rich. They think it’s the “PANACEA”. Let’s call a spade a spade: “Trickle-down Economics” is “Voodoo Economics” as opined by George H. W. Bush. Ross Perot also characterized it as “Political Voodoo”.
6
The Republican tax cuts were the genesis of this inflationary cycle.
Interrupted by a pandemic, the eggs the republicans laid with tax cuts are hatching and rampant inflation is the result.
Don’t be fooled by Republican rhetoric and lies; when was the last time you could believe or take their claims to the bank? Never.
5
Had trump managed the pandemic better, thousands more would be alive and the economy too would have been in a better place.
4
Can we really trust the economists who tell us that Biden's economic policies work?
1
They denounced Obamacare too, but couldn’t come up with a better. Opinions are cheap.
1
Let the sour grapes commence. No doubt to reach full volume in the days following the impending GOP landslide.
@John D, They can't be any worse singers of the sour grape song than TFG and his MAGA RINOs have been for the past two years.
Can we have that headline in a ten inch font please. People are too thick to realize that the Republican Party is not the fiscally responsible party. Their ideas are bad!
4
My impression is that republicans make the economy worse. Their knee jerk response to economic situations is tax cuts for the wealthy because, republicans say, they invest those cuts back into their businesses which they do not. The wealthy and corporations engage in stock buy backs or putting money in off shore accounts.
The planned IRS cuts will allow tax cheating from Republican donor’s. It’s amazing to me that the supposed ‘law and order’ party has become the party that is okay with breaking the law when comes to cheating everyone but the wealthy. Now they want to come for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, all middle class and poor entitlements, never mind that separate payroll taxes are collected for those entitlement’s. Once they decide to cut those entitlement’s how do they plan on paying for those tax cuts when they have no payroll taxes to borrow from? In the meantime American’s, as usual, are not paying attention. Is JD Vance (if he gets elected) going to stand by while his poor, white southeastern Ohio constituents social security disability and retirement benefits are cut? Many of them only get $600 or less a month and that’s their total income. American’s are really stupid if they think republican are better with the public’s purse, they raise the debt and deficit every time they are power.
4
Look around MAGA! Inflation is a world wide economic problem right now!! They're just going to try to do exactly what Liz Truss tried. They're plans are much worse than Joe's.
7
The Republican plans are irrelevant at this point as the Democrats should be fired for their handling of the economy. They demanded and got, on a party line vote, a huge, inflationary spending bill in early 2021. It was obvious to everyone that the economy was already in a strong recovery as Covid concerns subsided, and they were warned by the likes of Larry Summers about the inflationary effects. But they didn't care. Inflation will be ultimately be tamed by Joe Biden's recession. Prepare for the red wave.
5
@Paul
ENGLAND tried the Republican plan and inflation is sky high and people are suffering. The Biden plan prevented inflation from going as sky high as it is in the countries that have already adopted the right wing Republican plan.
But anyone who thinks "saving" the economy means giving billionaires MORE tax cuts and eliminating Social Security and Medicare should vote Republican.
Anyone who believes a woman needs to consult with her politician before choosing an abortion to save her life should vote Republican.
But this newspaper does a lousy job of informing voters what the Republican economic plan actually is.
1
@Paul
Q: What policies do the Republicans have if they get control of the House?
A: Nothing
Sure glad they will improve things......NOT!
@Paul .... "Democrats should be fired for their handling of the economy.".... Inflation in the EU is higher than the U.S. The U.S. created 260,000 new jobs last month and the unemployment rate is a record low 3.5%. The U.S. dollar has steadily been gaining strength against foreign currencies. The U.S. economy is in better shape than almost every other countries. Facts are important in making judgments.
1
republicans are pretty adept at taking care of the wealthiest among us. For everyone else in America, they have no clue what do do, nor do they seem to care.
6
The damage from Democrat policies is already done and there's not much that can be done to reverse it, especially when Biden is still President. This article is nonsense.
2
The message needs to be pounded home again and again: Conservatism, as a governing philosophy, is a fraud- it never spells out what it’s actual main objectives are: (1) Preserving White Hegemony, and (2) Upward Wealth Transference.
8
Doesn’t matter. Fox and Facebook have spoken. Reality has no place in this house.
5
Ah, yes, the Liz Truss platform. Brilliant.
11
Their plans always seem to help the already sick-rich.....
4
Google Liz Truss
3
well cutting the rate of government spending growth to below the rate of nominal GDP growth most certainly will help tamp down inflationary pressures but tax cuts won't necessarily. It depends on how targetted they are. Targeted tax incentives to invest in supply chain or hiring more people in sectors that are seeing the worst constraints (thereby making inflation worse right now) could help but tax cuts on consumers not at all.
3
Democracy or cheap gas. If you have to think about this move to Russia. D to go forward R for reverse.
18
Two points on that. First, few economists would dispute that the 2021 Biden spending legislation, and executive orders extending student loan moratoria and forgiveness, directly promoted inflation, now that we have the data. It is as stark any data in history. Secondly, at the beginning of 2022c few economists understood how fundamental the inflation was. I watched Larry Summers lash out, both in print and in public conferences, at other economists to try to wake them up. Their advice last year was notably poor in quality. What makes this year’s advice more credible?
4
Nobody has received any money from loan forgiveness!
1
@rjs7777 .... "It is as stark any data in history".....Inflation and the unemployment rate are both higher in the EU than the U.S. When you add that "stark" data into the mix and your conclusion doesn't make any sense.
If the Republicans had a plan that would be news. They believe a plan is simply blaming the other guy who will turn out to be either a lefty a liberal a socialist, real or imagined or their favorite the main stream media which they cannot even describe.
Their plan, if one can call it that, is simply pass the buck
10
I have yet to see historical evidence of the GOP fiscal responsibility.
They are reckless and they lie. Lies that stroke hate are what sells to many American voters.
Why does this always happen and why are the majority of voters so ignorant.
They don't even own any liberals.
12
@travis psst: I think they were talking about 2021 legislation they voted no on, and Biden’s 2021-2022 executive orders, which were meant to accentuate differences between Biden and Trump.
I think it is sad that Republicans do have such a strong argument in this regard, even if PPP loans under Trump were overly generous. This isn’t that Republicans did good things, but rather that Democrats irresponsible things. A plan to do nothing can easily be more responsible than a plan to do harmful things.
@rjs7777
I think you are wrong frankly.
GOP-ers claim to have a plan.
Here it is:
"Proposed tax and spending cuts by the G.O.P."
Strange, heared this one before...not long ago...... only a week ago or so....
Got it!
UK, Truss, the baby Thatcher. Pound faling and markets panicking.
Good plan GOP.
12
@Marc Panaye my thoughts exactly. The markets have already spoken on this GOP plan.
1
Of course anyone can criticize even the GOP whose administration created this fiasco with an incompetent X#45 as potus. Leaving a mess for others to cleanup like #46.
X#45 did not find a house in disarray left by #44 but when you have a psychotic handling affairs of government you can expect both lying and chaos.
6
If Republicans win control of the House and/or the Senate and push through their reckless tax cuts and spending cut policies that will not stop inflation, but will increase the deficit and wreck our economy, I would trust that President Biden wields his might Veto pen to prevent their recklessness from becoming law.
The article did not address the likelihood of presidential vetoes on all sorts of misguided Republican bills.
Have at it Republicans- veto, veto, veto, etc.
6
The Republicans have decided that balancing the humors of the economy will cure, anything. Bleeding the commons and forcing it to have blood transfusions to prevent exsanguination is their favorite treatment.
The government they complain is experiencing inflation because of debt do they will load it with far more debt just to operate.
Then they will insist that social security and Medicare and Medicaid must be privatized to reduce the deficits. Then as elderly impoverishment returns as it was in the 19th century and early twentieth century, what then?
The whole Republican Party membership are deluded with Reagan’s fantasies about economics.
5
Republicans blame Biden for inflation. But they refuse to give him credit for the hottest job market most of us have ever seen. How does that work?
The Republican economic strategy? Same as it always was. Tax cuts for the rich and hope they do it for us. That's 1980s thinking. It's no longer valid in the 21st century.
We're seeing activity on Main St that's more than a trickle down from Wall St. That will keep the middle class above water while the Fed deals with inflation.
Doubling down on what didn't work before is not a smart strategy for moving into the future. But that's still who Republicans are.
10
You really want to start a civil war? Wait until all of those “conservative” senior voters, red state and MAGA hatters and impoverished people with disabilities or no access to useful employment get their pensions devalued, their Medicare and Medicaid curtailed or eliminated, and start paying outrageous prices for prescription drugs (more than now) and see increases in their tax burden, all while the stock market explodes and billionaires buy more yachts and build Mars rockets. And, with a Republican dominated Congress and a rubber stamp Supreme Court, states with gerrymandered legislations will assure that this condition might endure as a new feudalistic state. When they finally wake up to what they did to themselves, the GOP might learn to regret their lock-step support of the NRA and their selective reading of the second amendment just to get votes. You can still fire an AR-15 from a wheelchair.
7
@HKS
“Protecting Drug Innovation Act.”
Read it and weep, then call your Congressman.
Calling my congressman wouldn’t do any good. He bought into that a long time ago.
The GOP have the edge on inflation only because they can blame the Dems.
But what is their saving solution? Again, it’s trickle down economics.
UK’s Truss illustrated it’s an utter ploy and economic disaster on a smaller scale.
Our economy the largest in the world can temporarily absorb the corporate welfare in cuttings their taxes hence fooling the public.
All it does is fuel corporate greed and spiral our federal budget which will lower the price on treasury bonds which will in effect lesson the Fed’s borrowing power.
Get out and vote…
This is the most important midterm election since 2020.
18
@Mookie
“Protecting Drug Innovation Act.”
Read it, weep, then call everyone you can.
That Bill defines Republicanism.
1
Wait, so first Republics say that “free money” from the Democrats (still waiting for my big check, BTW) is adding too much money to the consumer economy, causing inflation.
Then Republics propose to fix inflation by cutting taxes, which will put more money into the consumer economy?
I really think that anyone who believes that Republics are better for the economy is economically illiterate.
15
@Objectively Subjective
When taxes are cut for the wealthy, it does not translate into significantly more consumer spending.
The Republican Party doesn’t care about good governance. They don’t actually care about inflation. They care about winning the upcoming elections and ending representative democracy in this country, installing a Hungarian style soft-autocracy.
Add to that, the average voter is a lot like that cartoon of the blob who wants everything to be different, so they take a baseball bat to the room and destroys everything. Then only after everything is destroyed (which is different) do they realize they made a mistake.
Voters aren’t actually thinking about what will truly happen if they hand the modern Republican Party the keys to power again. All they know is, they don’t like things the way they are, so they’re acting out.
It’s hard to tell whether or not any given voter just wants to punish the Democrats because they’re the ones who just so happen to be in power right now, or if they truly believe what they’re being told by Republicans. But it’s a distinction without a difference. The end result is the same.
They’ll elect Republicans who will increase interest rates to 20% causing an instant and incredibly deep recession, bailout the wealthy, leave the middle class to rot, and only after the whole country is mired in misery will they realize the mistake they made. Only, next time they won’t be able to vote them out. Because Republicans are planning to install changes that ensure they never lose again. Just like Putin or Orban.
14
Democrats aren't in power right now! Democrats don't have the Senate! Democrats don't have control of most states. Republicans control the vast majority of big businesses. And Republicans control, literally, the Supreme Court. So why are Republicans blaming democrats for everything after holding the Presidency for only 2 yrs? Because they can. Its lie upon lie and the NYTs just let's them say it. Please stop.
@pjtawney
Democrats do control the Senate and the Executive Branch, and the largest states.
That’s not nothing.
COVID disrupted the international supply chains, creating inflation around the world.
Putin’s war against Ukraine also disrupted the supply chains, further contributing to inflation.
The solution to international inflation is not raising interest rates to create a worldwide recession.
Instead, the solution is to defeat COVID and defeat Putin!
Thank you, President Biden, for working to defeat COVID and Putin.
6
The Republican policies might actually reduce inflation but would cause a recession.The GOP likes to give tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals who don’t spend the extra money because they don’t need it.If they weren’t spending that would ease inflationary pressures.On the other hand the poor and middle class who do spend any extra money in their paychecks would be hit with higher taxes, a low minimum wage and certainly no child care .Their budgets would be pinched and they would stop spending and there would be a recession.The GOP mantra that money trickles down has been discredited.In the years since the mid 1940s’ the GDP growth under Democratic presidents has been higher than that of terms when Republicans were in charge.Republicans fail Economics 101!
4
Republican's policies are one of the main reasons we have inflation
Trump, against the advice of many economists, pushed to lower an already low interest rate at a time when it wasn't necessary. He did so for selfish reasons - he wanted to heat up the economy prior to an election. The result, which many economist predicted, was overheating the economy. Soaring housing prices and stock prices followed. Then Trump gave away a Trillions of taxpayer dollars that started the inflationary cycle. To make things worse, Trump attacked China imports disrupting supply chains, and limiting supply
Inflation directly came from Trump policies. Biden did not help though. He ensured inflation would continue with a second unnecessary stimulus and delayed response to already rising inflation
2
If the goal is to help the Fed flight inflation by reducing budget deficits, there are two fundamental ways to accomplish that. One is by cutting spending, which Republicans always say they want to do after passing huge tax cuts. But they always find that their voters depend on the safety net federal programs that they would need to cut, and the vaunted ‘fraud and waste’ that Republicans pledge to eliminate is never sufficient to make any difference in the budget deficit.
The other way to reduce budget deficits is to bring in more tax revenues. That is what Democrats have enacted this session, by focusing on business and upper-income tax rates and by giving the IRS more revenue to ensure that those with the greatest wealth do not cheat the rest of us. And that is what Republicans are proposing to gut, by restoring tax cuts to wealthy who don’t need them and by starving the IRS so deep-pocketed tax cheats can continue to rob the government.
In view of this, why does any American trust Republicans to be more successful managing the economy and bringing down inflation? They have always been the party of flim-flam, voodoo economics, and gross incompetence.
1
So you're saying the billions spent under the guise of the Inflation Reduction Act won't suffice?
It was just a trojan horse for all manner of progressive payola to their dependent constituency?
And the illegal student loan "forgiveness" plan is likewise likely to further fuel inflation?
I am shocked.
You need to understand that loan forgiveness occurs at roughly the same time payments start up again. The net effect on inflation is at least minimal and likely to be negative.
2
The internet, personal computers, biotech, cell phones, aerospace - so much America prosperity in the last century is thanks to large government investment in basic and applied science and technology, which was then used to start countless public companies. Republicans don’t get this. Their short-term cheapness and small-mindedness will hurt us in the long term.
6
COVID disrupted the international supply chains, creating inflation around the world.
Putin’s war against Ukraine also disrupted the supply chains, further contributing to inflation.
The solution to international inflation is not raising interest rates to create a worldwide recession.
Instead, the solution is to defeat COVID and defeat Putin!
Thank you, President Biden, for working to defeat both COVID and Putin!
20
@AKJersey
The vaccines were developed under Trump. Biden oversaw a resurgence of COVID and over 800,000 COVID deaths.
The Democrats just withdrew a demand for a ceasefire in the Ukraine, So that they could be seen as tough.
Look, war is bad. It takes 2+ sides. The Democrats and Biden are using this war and the lives of Ukrainians as political fodder.
I couldn't care less who gets elected. As long as they do the right thing. Tomorrow Biden and Trump could switch parties. Right now, Biden is so clearly failing it us that we should all be concerned
Facts are irrelevant to Republican policies. Sooner or later we are going to pay dearly for that.
13
Republicans are all about entertainment and keeping the base happy with nonsense "issues" like "replacement." If the Republicans take control of both the House and the Senate they will immediately impeach and convict President Biden, Vice President Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer for high crimes and misdemeanors. Hunter Biden will also generate a huge investigation. That's the entertainment part along with keeping the base happy and distracted. Their real work will be slowly dismantling the government, eliminating taxes for the wealthy and corporations, and eliminating the social safety net. Some actions, like tax elimination will be rapid, others more slowly, like getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that way their base won't notice the changes.
10
@PhillySub convict? no way they're going to have anywhere close to 2/3 of the senate - even with manchin's vote. there'd be a lotta vetos.
Biden's attack on domestic energy on day 1 of his presidency set the tone for the administration. He showed that he is beholden to the fringe elements of the party - albeit a huge fringe. Now he's begging to the Saudis to increase supplies - at least until midterm elections are over. So all his nonsense about no drilling on federal lands, no new permits on federal lands, is a massive driver of inflation. Democrats need to own that, and hang your heads in shame.
Here’s exactly what Biden said on oil drilling:
"Number one, no more subsidies for fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one."
The massive spending programs obviously drives inflation too. And his trillions that he handed out even after the pandemic restrictions were subsiding are the next biggest driver of inflation. Free college will also pump another half a trillion dollars into the economy, increasing demand - and, say it with me ... "stoking inflation". Democrats cannot be trusted on matters of the economy, or crime, or immigration.
2
@Donald Driver - yet somehow, as in the past, deficits are much smaller under biden than his republican predecessor. republicans talk like they know what they're doing, but generally make things much worse.
2
@Donald Driver
Have you checked inflation rates in other countries around the world? Sorry, but it isn't just Joe Biden.
Also, check fossil fuel industry record profits right now, mostly caused by Russia's war on Ukraine-oil companies are essentiall making hideous profits on the bodies of dead Ukranians & the backs of hard working Americans.
Meanwhile, oil companies have many leases they don't drill on, in order to keep prices high. It's easy to blame it on the president-were you blaming George W. Bush in 2008 when the price of oil hit $140 a barrel (higher than in May of 2022!), and a gallon of gasoline was even higher than it is now in terms of inflation adjusted price?
3
@Donald Driver So how do you explain the fact that not all the available and approved leases already here are not being used? How do you explain record profits for oil companies? And you do realize that inflation is a world-wide issue? Or do these facts not fit your agenda?
1
The Republican Party is a one trick pony. While they run on a range of ignorance, bigotry and sleaze, all they really intend is to keep rich people and corporations from paying taxes. This can be done by lowering top rates, providing loop holes, or by keeping the IRS from going after tax cheats. Check the record going back to 1980. The run up in the national debt pre-pandemic was all Republican tax cuts, and you can't find any other accomplishments.
14
Here we go again with Republican promises of fiscal restraint to heal the economy. Generally, under Republican administrations the deficit goes up. Generally, under Democratic administrations the deficit goes down. When will the American voter realize this? I'll take short term pain with pandemic-related inflation in turn for real fiscal restraint that helps all Americans rather than Republican tax cuts that primarily go to the already wealthy and corporations while offering table scraps for the rest of us.
8
OMG. And here I thought the GOP had all the answers. Even a magic wand. They sure sounded like it, from their rhetoric.
The legitimate media, on the Sunday morning news programs have, for the most part, forgotten how to ask probing questions and get an answer that isn't at best disingenuous .... and then they happily leave it at that. These shows are not quite as useless as the "debates", but they are trying very hard to get there.
4
Covid crashed the economy. Biden and the Democrats instituted a large stimulus which brought it roaring back. Rather than understimulate and have a repeat of 2010, they overstimulated. The result was inflation. But the bottom line is people are employed again and businesses are taking in orders. I don't get why people are blaming Biden and the Democrats for a positive result to what could have been a decade of depression.
7
@Bruce
The economy is shrinking look at the GDP over the last 9 months. Real wages are down. Stocks markets are getting crushed. Everything is in short supply. We became a net energy importer. The stimulus that prevented economic disaster came from Trump. The economy was booming when Biden assumed office.
We told him too much spending would lead to inflation. He did it anyway and is continuing. We told him he had no plan for renewable energy. He hampered domestic fossil fuel production anyway. He ignored supply issues. Production and supply are down, prices are up. He fought with producers instead of partnering with them.
This is why we blame Biden.
1
The economy was booming in January 2020? Wow, on what planet?
When the GOP recklessly cut the taxes on the wealthiest Americans, their most important campaign donors, and promised us that the benefits caused by those policies would eventually trickle down on all the Americans, they failed to inform us what would be the name for those “promised benefits”.
Now we have learned.
It’s called the rampant inflation, truly impacting all of us.
If you cut the taxes, as the Republican elite did, without reducing the perks to the people for exactly the same amount, you create the enormous hole in the national treasury and the surplus of the easy money, the key ingredients triggering the inflation.
The Republicans cannot offer the solution. They created the problem four decades ago by assuring us the deficits don’t mater.
The deficit matters because it creates the debt that nobody is going to pay off.
Only the inflation can eliminate the uncollectable debt.
We should thank the conservatives, the ideological fathers of the chronic red in the federal finances, for the current inflation…
3
Is there a problem the GOP can't fix with tax cuts? Good times to be a rich person. Good times indeed.
12
Companies are largely responsible for inflation with record profits. How does giving them a tax cut help? Also a lot of the policies just inacted like more money for the IRS and the alternate minimum tax have yet to show the effect. If we don't get silly and spend a lot more money on something you will see the budget deficit shrink. Things take time. I am kinda sick of everything being measured in quarters like how shareholders demand.
7
More tax cuts for the wealthy. Reductions in the very social programs that keep our parents and grandparents alive. A budget ceiling threat that could send the country into the worst fiscal crisis we've ever known. What middle class American wouldn't support that?
3
"They have pledged to reduce government spending and to make permanent parts of the 2017 Republican tax..."
In other words, if they can they'll reduce services to those in need AND will give more money to those who DON'T (corporations, the rich and themselves). The more things change, the more they stay the same. Vote Democrat!!!
15
It’s essential to understand what Republicans can and cannot do if they take Congress.
Because they will not achieve the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto, they will not be able to repeal any legislation or pass anything new. The IRA, increased corporate taxes, and so on will remain; they will not be able to cut taxes on the rich or gut Social Security and Medicare.
They will, however, be able to throw bombs, the biggest being the threat not to increase the debt limit. The Democrats can easily forestall this threat by raising or eliminating the limit before the new Congress convenes in January.
Inflation is unlikely to remain at its current level indefinitely; by 2024, things will surely look very different.
More fundamentally, the Rs have no real interest in governing. Led by their far right fools, they will spend their time pursuing pointless “investigations” and impeaching everyone they can think of, starting with Biden and Garland.
The biggest danger to us all comes not from an R Congress but the Supreme Court. When it okays voter suppression, shreds the remaining tatters of the Voters Act, grants evangelicals rights to discriminate, it will lay the final planks in the groundwork for a permanent R ascendency from 2024 on. Ds in Congress may try to reverse these decisions, as with abortion now, but under an R regime that will be impossible.
While of course inflation hurts—and whom the most? lenders!—it is a red herring, a shiny object to deceive voters.
12
Why won't inflation last? I was here for that last Republican inflation disaster. It started under Republican President Ford. Caused initially by an OPEC oil embargo. The FED eaised interest rates for eight years, with no effect except to destroy the entire economy and transfer decades of middle class wealth to bankers who let entire neighborhoods crumble. The train wreck lasted thru the first two years of Reagan's term. He had to raise, that's right raise, taxes to get out if it and of course the FED stopped raising interest rates when a Republican was elected. They do that alot by the way, funny you never mention it. Republicans will ride this inflation train to the bank for at least eight years. Until Americans realize they have been bamboozled, again.
Again, I'll advocate to return the primary fiscal responsibilities to the states. The federal budget is simply a large wealth re-distribution system that, through huge amounts of graft and corruption, overwhelmingly favors wealthy people. Destroy it and return the tax and spend accountability to more local jurisdiction... "state's rights", no?
You think red states care more about their people than their corporate donors? You think State government is corruption free? How do you think welfare money got into Mississippi's Brett Favre's pocket to build a volley ball facility at his daughter's college? The state Governor is corrupt! Florida's Governor begs for federal money for his states millionaire Beach front but you can bet poor trailer dwellers will never see a dime. Oh and even in our Blue state we had a Governor that went nuts over a pretty wife and let her take money woth no deliverable. States? Have I got a bridge to sell you.
The only *real* tool the Republicans will have over the next 2 years is the debt ceiling. They will exercise brinkmanship again, like they did under Obama. The result will be that the United States as a whole and each of us will be poorer after their stunt. It could force the Fed to print more money in order to stop a financial crisis, which will fuel another round of inflation. Hopefully they will scare the American people enough in the next 2 years to not consider voting for them again in 24.
8
The GOP motto is 'Repeal but do not replace' They justify government giveaways to the rich with their trickle-down approach while calling for an end to SSI, Medicare, affordable health care and more because of the tax burden on everyone else. They call poor and middle class lazy for not being able to fend for themselves without even caring that people might hold multiple jobs in order to make ends meet. The GOP cares nothing about combatting inflation. They would gladly watch CEOs raise their own profits by increasing prices.
Their wealthy voters see GOP wins as more money in their pockets. What irks me is the rest of the GOP voters who just believe the lies.
10
Their last phony tax cut is one of the reasons we’re in this mess.
280
@David Yeah, not the fact that gas prices have doubled under Biden and the price of gas impacts EVERYTHING you purchase at a store. Funny how the tax cuts didn't cause inflation prior to January 2021.
2
@Greg Considering most people were not out and about in 2020. Most were not even working, or working remotely, thus not needing GAS. When folks did go out they were looking for toilet paper, cleansers and trying to stay alive.
27
war can, does, and has driven up prices on all energy. that occurred after the election, so it’s corollary, yes, but certainly not causal as you are seemingly intending to imply.
6
No, even if Republicans win control of both houses of Congress (unlikely but definitely possible), Mr. Biden will still be president. Mr. Biden has shown that he will spend profligately without bothering with Congressional approval, even when such approval is required by law. His student loan forgiveness program is of course a clear example.
Thus, even a Republican victory on election day will not have much immediate moderating effect on inflation. But, with a longer time perspective, a Republican victory will likely be of significant benefit.
There are multiple contributors to today's rampant inflation. These include supply chain problems caused by the pandemic and the Draconian lockdowns imposed to "flatten the curve," lockdowns that were probably excessive, and which probably did substantial harm.
Mr. Putin's war is a major contributor, especially with regard to energy prices. But Mr. Biden's exuberant cancellation of the already in progress Keystone Pipeline and restrictions on US energy production and distribution also hurt.
And, most importantly, the enormous government spending and entitlement programs that are a hallmark of progressive policy are a major contributor to inflation. Some of the spending was bipartisan, but much was Democratic, including the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act and student debt forgiveness.
There is no doubt: Republican policies will, when assessed over a period of a few years, help a great deal in controlling inflation.
5
@alex ...nonsense
22
@alex
Indeed, time and again trickle down has been proven ... to do something something. In other news, the accidental tourists, aka good guys with guns*, saved the Nations Capital from being burned down again by the British on 1/6. We all need our best letters Raised.
2
I hope you are aware that the supply chain problems occurred during the previous administration and that the keystone pipeline was not going to provide any energy to the United States. Most Republicans are aware, they just like to trot out those concepts for less intellectually endowed.
28
Truss arrives in America. Does the GOP ever have any real ideas other than cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations?
"Few Economists Expect Their Plans to Help"
Gee, what a shock!!
29
No political process in this country is going to tame inflation and get away with it. Inflation is existential, but no political bobble head on TV or social media will tell you that. There's not a darn thing that can they do about it; shouldn't even be a topic for debate.
4
Republicans only care about their wealthy donors and creating a feudal society.
Even the abortion issue is not something Republicans really care about it is only a way to collect votes to further their agenda.
Thank you NY times for this article. Fox News will not talk about these issues.
15
Thankfully none of the insane, inflationary and kleptocratic Republican policy will become law while Biden is president. However, a debt default would be a catastrophe for the nation and the current crop of Republicans are not above causing one in an attempt to get their way.
15
Republicans have absolutely no viable plan or plans to fight inflation for one fundamental reason: they do not believe in good national governance. Actually they hate it. The only thing they believe in is Grover Norquist’s dictum to “starve the beast” and enrich the private sector.
19
This is precisely at the core of the Republican problem: They do not believe in the United States of America. They support breaking up the federal government and turning the country into a loosely affiliated conglomeration of individual states, preferably ruled by them, with only the military being supported and paid for by all states. Republicans want their own little fiefdoms where they can run roughshod over anyone who doesn’t agree with them, because in their dream world, there will be no federal constitution protecting the rights of all, and white Christians can rule without opposition.
2
And let's be clear. When Republicans talk about the private sector they don't mean workers, they mean owners. And they don't mean small business owners, they mean multi million and billion dollar corporations. Everything they says about helping small business is a lie.
2
If Republicans gain control of the House or Senate, our support for Ukraine will evaporate, and Putin will rapidly destroy Ukraine and move on to the other former USSR nations. The only goal of Republican control is to move more wealth to the one percent.
13
What clearly doesn't help is spending trillions of dollars we don't have, depleting the strategic oil reserves, and forgiving student loans.
2
People can buy your stuff small business owner, use your shoe shop, dry clean their clothes, or buy your used car, if they have huge debt. Do you want people to buy from you or pay the government more interest on student loans forever?
This isn't about a gift to kids who borrowed thinking the benefit would trickle down, a gift to poor rich kids, That's a Republican lie. It about freeing up a large group of American consumers to buy something else. To spend money at your small business.
Republicans are liars. Always remember, if a Republican on FOX is talking, it's a lie and most certainly not in your best interest. Learn that and we can pull together to manage inflationary greed. And help those impacts, both consumers and small businesses caught too, by helping increas production of goods Americans need. Just remember, Republicans are liars! Don't trust them!
Inflation is caused by under production and delayed refinement. Decreased production is engineered by Saudi Arabia and Russia to drive up prices and hobble the west. Hydrocarbons are responsible for global warming global sickness and death. Hydrocarbon dependence gives Putin and MBS a weapon to torture and rob. Transportation, manufacture, farming, heating, electrical generation, all contribute to inflation while Putin and MBS rake in the cash and the EU reels.
It’s dishonest to discuss inflation without including the main cause: hydrocarbons.
3
The economy was much better under Trump. Stock market was better. Inflation was much lower. Labor participation was higher. (a more critical measurement than unemployment - which doesn't count people who 'aren't seeking work')
Biden messed it up.
@Ami I am assuming you think Trump's term ended in February 2020.
1
@Ami Covid messed everything up, and that happened under Trump. Granted, it wasn’t his fault, but he certainly didn’t help to get it under control sooner. The entire administration was full of amateurs, and that’s also where it went wrong.
1
@Ami it was much better under Obama. Trump just rode the wave into the ground. Biden is picking up the pieces.
But you knew that.
Corporate greed is a major contributor to the inflation we are experiencing right now. Democratic candidates should loudly and clearly proclaim that Republicans tired proposals for tackling inflation will exacerbate the problem rather than solve anything, as demonstrated most recently by the fiasco in the UK.
6
Whether the Republican plans will “rapidly bring down inflation” is an artificial standard. The starting point should be “do no harm” - a principal the Biden Administration disregarded by pumping trillions of dollars of new spending into the economy. If the GOP plans merely staunch that bleeding, it will have accomplished something positive.
He isn't just pouring money into the economy, he is trying to build stuff. Republicans cut taxes with the same goals supposedly, but corporation spent much of the money on stock buy backs and raises without increasing productivity. Those are facts, so stop with the whole spending disaster nonsense, it doesn't fly.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain just lost her job, in part, because of her plan for tax cuts to reduce inflation. And now Republicans want to...cut taxes to reduce inflation. Note to self...
21
For the most part, the Republicans have no cohesive plan to address inflation, or any other aspect of the economy for that matter. Even if they did, and even if they could overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate (not likely), they won't have the kind of majorities in congress necessary to overcome a veto by President Biden of any of it. So, will they try to get rid of IRA policies (e.g., negotiated drug prices), etc.? Probably. Can they actually achieve any of that legislatively - Nope.
So what can we expect from a Republican-controlled congress? The same thing that we had the last time: Chaos and ineffectiveness. Federal Government shutdowns (at least one), and debt limit brinkmanship. Lots of talk, and lots of "investigations" of Hunter.
8
The GOP proposals are not just unlikely to reduce inflation any time soon, they're unlikely to reduce inflation at all. Ever. The only thing that ever trickles down are taxes. The supply-side trickle-down mantra is just a sales gimmick. It's not intended to actually work. It's just intended to peddle the conservative brand. Because that's what this country has become: a brand. Sad.
7
Robust international trade, which was damaged by COVID, is essential to combat inflation.
The US needs to remove Trump’s tariffs in order to jump-start international trade.
5
Tax cuts? Certainly not for middle class folks. They will be directed to big business and the .01% types.
12
The fact is nothing our politicians do, regardless of party, will have an immediate impact on inflation. There are several factors which have driven inflation including disruption of supply chains and shortages of specific goods related to, first, the corona virus and, second ,the war in Ukraine. But there are other factors including accelerated government spending, and potentially “debt forgiveness.” Now, we cannot put the horse back in the barn on the excessive spending immediately post Covid, but student loan forgiveness still could be stopped and well may be by the courts.
Going forward, increasing energy production, most particularly oil and gas, will have an impact on energy costs which affect not only you gasoline bill, but the cost of almost all other goods. Like it or not, we will be dependent upon these sources for a long time, and while it would reduce prices today, expanded energy production will reduce prices in the future.
In addition, we should ramp up our nuclear power capacity. Wind, sun, and hydro are all great, but you must have sufficient on demand base load generating capacity when these sources fail to provide adequate power.
1
"The challenge for Mr. Biden is that voters do not seem to be demanding details from Republicans [about how they would fix inflation] and are instead putting their trust in them to turn around the economy."
Trust Republicans? Might as well trust Lucy to hold the football.
8
About a month ago, former Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow said on this Fox News show "The new British prime minister, Liz Truss, has laid out a terrific supply-side economic growth plan which looks a lot like the basic thrust of Kevin McCarthy's Commitment to America plan.” A month later, after her plan caused economic chaos in Britain, Liz Truss resigned in disgrace.
The Republican's experiment has been done, and it was a spectacular failure. Just like past Republican tax cuts by Reagan, Bush and Trump. Tax cuts for the rich simply don't stimulate the economy because the wealthy don't spend their windfall savings, use it to increase workers wages or invest it in their businesses. This money all goes into the stock market, increasing their net worth but not helping anyone else.
A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result each time.
16
Since Reagan, the GOP has implemented failed supply-side economics four times. THose tax giveaways never paid for themselves nor never "trickled down" creating lots of high wage jobs.
To think Republicans can progressively combat inflation without creating larger social ills is preposterous.
Also note that most Republican candidates never detail their plans to reduce inflation just like they fail to explain how they'll be "tough on crime". What crime? How will you combat it? Ask questions and demand answers.
If any candidate says they'll fight inflation, be tough on crime or improve "election integrity"; ask them how and don't stop asking until they explain their proposed policies.
Register to vote and help friends and family register if they've not done so already. Educate yourself on the candidates and issues, then vote like our democracy depends on it, because it does.
9
The public, bless its heart, is oblivious to what has been the main driver of inflation -- the Fed printing of trillions of dollars to keep the economy bubbling along. That effectively sent inflation to nations that don't own the world's reserve currency, but the Karma-like blowback has intruded here.
Plus, the sanctions -- which have mostly resulted in much of the world looking for a way to undercut the dollar's dominance.
The public at large hasn't the faintest notion of such matters. It routinely votes against the party it recently ensconced in power, you know -- because.
Both political parties routinely play games with the deficit, "entitlements," the national debt, and whatever economic state of affairs has descended on the current office occupants.
This is called "democracy."
1
Where was the GOP on healthcare, the environment, immigration, infrastructure, or prescription meds? Even when they had control of Congress they did nothing except to pass a multi-trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy and corporations with main street America left holding the bill. Now, medicare and social security will most certainly be on the chopping block.
5
So much talk. So little sense. (1) There is no shortage of oil or natural gas. (2) Oil and natural gas prices are not high. Price AT THE PUMP are high. You figure it out. (3) No one in France, GB, Germany, etc., etc., got us stimulus checks, so how come their inflation is HIGHER? (4) If stimulus checks caused inflation, why aren't the COLAs REALLY pushing it? They are. cumulatively, MUCH more. (5) How many Republicans have returned either check? This is a VERY complicated, world-wide issue, and these tidy bromides have literally no relevance.
2
Spending cuts would reduce inflation but not enough. The deterioration of the middle class and the overall standard of living will continue. The government will continue to appease the citizens sense of entitlement. There is no hope.
2
The only cure is fiscal at this point. Neither party can do much in Congress. The trick was to not set it off in the first place. Thank Biden and the multi trillion welfare act of 2022 for that. The next best would have been to not pretend it was transitory for months while pressuring the Fed with the Chairman’s re nomination hanging over his head. Again, kudos to Biden.
1
@Tim Kulhanek Biden caused a worldwide pandemic that strained supply, employment, healthcare, and host of other social issues that would always require a great effort to recover from? Was the Biden Administration in power when the deficit shot up to $3 trillion during this period? Did Biden puppeteer Putin into invading a bordering independent nation, further straining supply and fuel economics? Is Biden exacerbating these conditions by having many companies, on record, self create inflation with unnecessary increased prices and decreased production?
What exactly was his responsibility to stop, with any of these things mentioned, and how could he have? What I have seen is the deficit decrease by a historical record amount while he's been in office
This is exactly the same plan that the Republicans have been selling since Reagan. It has NEVER worked before, but we keep trying it over and over again. Why in the world does anyone think it will work this time?
7
Neither Congress, nor presidents have much control over inflation or any power to do much about it. The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates and will do it again to address inflation. They control monetary policy, not Congress. The economy works on supply and demand and there's little Congress can do to affect that. Tax cuts will only make inflation worse. Republicans who promise to lower inflation either don't understand how the economy works, or are just lying to get votes, or both.
3
Of course the Republicans have a plan to deal with inflation:
Tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy donor class;
Deregulate everything;
Cut Social Security;
Cut Medicare;
Eliminate Medicaid;
Cease food stamps and school lunch programs; and, naturally
Repeal Obamacare.
6
For politicians of both parties, our current bout of inflation puts them in an untenable position, politically speaking. Either they can say that they have the cure for inflation - and fail to tame it once elected, which engenders further cynicism in the electorate - or they can be honest and say that they don't have any trade-off free cure for inflation and then just not get elected.
But at least part of the foregoing is on us as we expect that our political leaders will have good answers to all major problems that confront us.
1
"few economists" think the gop policies will help inflation? So the majority are the same ones who assured us, as unanimous experts, that this inflation would never occur, or that it will be transitory. They have lost their right to speak by being so wrong and in lockstep. I believe the "few economists"
@Paul Yeah, corporate tax cuts and not financing social services have always worked out historically. That's why Liz Truss remains in power.
I agree that Republicans are not offering up good ideas to reduce inflation. But why do you ignore the Democrats, as they have been in power since this transitory inflation appeared? They are in denial that inflation is an issue, and it was only this week that they could even utter the word economy in their political ads. BBB, loan forgiveness, and the like do not sound like inflation reduction programs.
1
@Luxembourg Because Democrats aren't simultaneously attempting to strip away rights, further subvert elections and democracy, pander to a singular controversial (at best) individual, or spread literal falsities about easily verifiable information.
I agree that our state and federal Congressional individuals have a ways to go, but equity and happiness will drastically degrade if the current base of Republicans gain more influence. Please understand.
Liz Truss had the same great ideas for improving the economy--the tired, disproven, Reagan era, trickle-down economics.
Liz had her head handed to her and became the shortest PM in English history.
Unfortunately, if the republicans have their way, we cannot fire them after 43 days and are destined for poverty --except the rich folks who get the tax cuts, of course.
20
That’s obvious because Republicans have only two economic tools: spending cuts directed at the poor and tax cuts for the rich. Neither of those things will do anything for inflation, especially since it’s a global problem.
12
I'm glad the denounce inflation. It's a start, and one day they might do something to lessen it. Doubtful, but one can always hope. Who knows, they could even go on to denounce tariffs and lying one day.
1
Not much new. Republican candidates for office in our state have proposed but two solutions, tax cuts and spending cuts when the facts are they are great at tax cuts but never with spending cuts.
3
Where is this scrutiny about the the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act, which is a misnomer since it will have no material effect in lowering inflation?
The Democrats usually like to promote the views of partisan economists and Nobel Laureates in support of their policies, but the fact that no such effort was made here tells you everything you need to know.
3
Tax cuts really helped the UK battle inflation over the past month! Look how well it's working!
7
The last hundred years has proven time and time again that the far right economic policies are a disaster. The GOP's open embrace of lawlessness disqualifies them completely on the subject of the rule of law. The GOP never has, and never will, do anything remotely serious about illegal immigration. The GOP will raise taxes (sometimes disguised as fees or turning public services over to private industry who charge fees as in toll roads) and cut benefits like social security and Medicare while handing out money to their wealthy donors. There is no rational reason for an average American to vote for the GOP.
7
@JT
'There is no rational reason for an average American to vote for the GOP.'
Well sometimes it does, like when they hate the same people officially hated by the Republican Party.
1
"Illegal" immigration provides low-wage, hardworking laborers for agriculture, meatpacking plants, construction, restaurants, etc. I am guessing that many Republican candidates are supported by owners of industries that employ undocumented migrants. In the Midwest I've seen men who I am guessing are undocumented migrants (Spanish speakers with no English skills) do yardwork and roofing and siding work. The "owner-boss" is inevitably a middle-aged white male. Seriously doubt he votes Democrat in my thoroughly red state. Local all-you-can-eat restaurant chains also employ folks who appear to be undocumented. Nobody seems to mind. These men (almost always men) work hard. There's absolutely no incentive to do anything about "Illegal immigrants" when they are needed in the US economy for the low-paying and tough jobs most ordinary Americans won't do.
2
@Michael Tyndall That's why I included "rational". The irrational fear and hate is a reason, just not a rational one.
1
The NYT reported only a few days ago that Nestle and Proctor & Gamble are report record profits despite declining sales due to price increases and that these companies will continue to increase prices to maintain profits in the face of “inflationary pressures” e.g. reduced sales.
US oil production is at near record highs. There is no shortage, just corporations lining their pockets. Trump’s 2 trillion dollar giveaway hasn’t trickled down yet, in fact it seems to be working in reverse and requiring us all to trickle up.
I often see those in the right blaming Biden’s policies for inflation when asked for specifics they normally point to cancelling Keystone XL. At the time it was cancelled it was 8 percent complete and wouldn’t be online until sometime in 2023 at the very earliest. How would it have prevented the current issues?
3
The pipeline's purpose was to carry tar sands crude from Canada to refineries in TX and LA where it would be refined and then exported. In the US, the transportation, refining, and shipping may have been all the project threw off, because the end product was not intended for US consumption, so the line that cancelling XL has had some effect on US gas supplies or prices is specious.
But who cares? Republican voters neither know nor understand this, only that it's something else that can e added to the long list of President Biden's imaginary sins.
3
While blaming Biden the GOP seems to have forgotten the trillions they pumped into the economy with Trump's tax cuts and Trump's pandemic aid programs.
This is the classic Republican game: point lots of fingers, but don't propose any workable solution to the problem.
7
Working class America hears "tax cuts" and make the mistake of thinking those are meant for them. When will they figure out that Republicans mean cuts for corporations and the wealthy?
8
Keep ‘em ignorant. That is the Republican philosophy. It won’t work. I think part of their plan is to cut entitlements and give the money supposedly saved to their wealth friends and use the payroll tax to fund it all.
1
Oh their plans will help alright, help corporations and the already extremely wealthy. That's all they know.
8
Don’t Republicans remember when DJT demanded that his signature appear on the pandemic checks, trying to take full credit for something hammered out by Congress? That is the real sort of economic policy ideas the GOP tends to have. They say that they are going to lower both taxes and and spending, but after doing the first, they “forget” to do the second. And when they lower taxes far more on the wealthy, the wealthy just buy up more of America, and to realize a profit on their acquisitions, they need to raise prices. And where do the cuts that they do hit? The poor and seniors, the “little” folk that don’t have as much economic impact.
In the Great Recession, an economic downturn that was mostly caused by the GOP spending billions on three wars and loosening regulations on banks and lending, the one group that was hit the least was seniors. Why, because of things like Medicare and Social Security were not touched by the GOP with their focus on the wars. But now, they don’t have those wars to boost “patriotism”. So, to pay for more money going towards the wealthy, they will have to cut Medicare and Social Security. But, lest we forget it, Social Security and Medicare is something that most people paid for by deductions from their paychecks. And, already, how much Social Security people get is directly related to how much each person paid into it.
Trust the GOP on economy? Not only “NO” but “H… NO”.
4
So, they’d stop going after wealthy tax cheats, they’d roll back global warming initiatives, cut government t spending on things like health and infrastructure, etc., etc.. What has happened to GOP? This was the party that, under Lincoln, fought for human dignity and rights and under Eisenhower, built an interstate highway system . . . one now needing help. This is what we get when a major party is taken over by narrow minded individuals more concerned with power, mandating their version of morality upon women and fooling folks to believe they serve in their best interest. It is a party funded by individuals whose wealth has grown exponentially while the rest of us watch as our living standards decline, our environment degrades and our dreams for a better tomorrow for our children fade.
5
The GOP policy on tax cuts and cutting services benefits just one group, the elite. If they take control of both Houses, the middle class and poor will suffer the brunt because Republicans just do not care who hurts as long as they regain power.
12
It is always easier to be a critic than to be the ones who have to deal with problems. As a critic in office, it is so much easier to say "I would have done it differently and better" without actually saying how one would have done so.
Voting "no" when in the minority is for too many just expected, because a tax cut, for example might be called inflationary, too expensive, reckless, and then take credit for it when back home. That is what happens. That is life in politics.
Republicans went on for years criticizing the "Obamacare" plan to help millions but had no idea at all when given the chance to make it better. People listen to the Siren song of better but never see the alternative; it is like shopping at faced with the "bait and switch" kind of salesmanship.
3
Last year we were told that "no serious economist" expected persistent, broad-based inflation.
Now we are told that "few economists" expect that Republican plans will help reduce inflation.
Is the intended inference that Republican plans will very likely help reduce inflation?
1
How about explaining what GOP Policy position are versus Dems on
Climate change
Economic Policy
Gun Control
Health
Medicare
Social Security
Womens Health
Voting rights
Immigration
Government
Can the Times Explain what each Senate and House Member has voted on and what they will do with control of houses of congress.
5
Republicans as far back as I can remember have been the party of fiscal irresponsibility. Just a fact. They don't dare to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid because about 40% of their voters are dependent on these programs. Why are such a large number dependent. Because capitalism in this country didn't work for them and the government had to step in or they would starve in old age, in disability and be without healthcare. Just a fact. Republicans at least traditionally would not cut but expand military budgets. So with about 80% to 90% of budget not cut where to cut. Oh, farm subsidies, no, Food and shelter subsidies, ah bad look and not popular. Infrastructure we just passed a law bipartisan. Oh, so nothing. Cut taxes mostly for rich and make deficits you say and are harmful to get worse, then blame Democrats for spending on bad stuff.
4
Here is the plan, a la GOP:
Save money on the front end by cutting spending on healthcare and prevention. Save money on the back end because more people will die and so there will be fewer survivors to enjoy Social Security and Medicare benefits. Remember all the seniors who died of that hoax Covid? They're not collecting their benefits now, so that's all to the good, right?
1
Excellent news. These are the same economists who said that inflation wasn’t going to be a problem, isn’t one now, and throwing a few more trillion dollars of spend into the pile wouldn’t have a negative impact. Hopefully Republicans will continue to ignore their advice.
3
Every economic situation is an opportunity for the GOP to chip away at anything that helps the people at the bottom and enrich the few at the top. They are anti-worker. When will people stop listening to what they say and pay attention to what they do. The GOP donor class want it all. They want your Social Security, they want Medicare and they want anything that resembles a social safety net. If you are not in the top 10%, they don't care what the effect is on you.
4
But as long as they can point to further impoverishing the worst off among us, especially those that are FECKLESS and UNDESERVING (wink wink) they can earn the votes of those half a rung higher on the ladder of survival.
Meanwhile, I hear there are are going to be some terrific deals available on second hand megayachts.
There seems to be very little coverage of growing corporate profits, a major factor in driving up costs. Perhaps if the media wasn't corporate owned, we might get a more honest analysis?
4
If people still think Republicans are better for the economy than Dems despite data proving otherwise, then we deserve the election results we're going to get and all the economic pain that comes with it!
1
Corporations are reporting record profits but Rs want to eliminate their tax hike? They already pay too little in taxes compared to me. Yeah, I'm struggling to pay the rent and gas, but I also want to retire with Social Security and Medicare intact. Republicans like Rick Scott and his yacht don't care about their constituents and have nothing of value to offer those of us who work hard and long hours most of our lives. But, they're all in on enriching themselves and their obscenely rich friends. The average American doesn't want this.
5
Welfare is a small price to pay for a wealthy nation. It's only in America that healthcare is so expensive.
3
I’ve yet to hear one republican explain to us what their plans are to tame inflation and gas prices. This is a global problem created by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. If you look back at when Obama left office, this country was in okay shape. Everything changed on 1/20/17 when Trump placed his hand on the Bible and promised to protect our country, it’s people, and honor our constitution. He did no such thing. For those of you who can’t see when all our problems began, open your eyes and be honest. This country has become so divided that most people can’t even talk to each other any longer about the issues. Trump wants payback for those that have badmouthed him, those who have testified against him, and you need to ask yourself….is this the kind of leader I want for this country, or someone who will be honest, serve with integrity, and caring? The choice isn’t hard for me. I don’t think Trump will win if he runs, it may be someone like De Santis who is cut from the same cloth, only he speaks a little softer and mild mannered. Both sides need better candidates. We shall see after the midterm elections who we get.
2
Republicans are very good at complaining and blaming Democrats, especially President Biden as the top Democrat, for all the nation's ills - especially today's economic situation, which is in fact global. Even a cursory look around shows the US is actually doing better in this environment than most other countries.
While the GOP has nothing more serious to offer than retreads of their failed policies from the past, they clearly respond to voters' concerns and frustrations. People are concerned about inflation, so they claim inflation is even worse than it really is and is the fault of those tax and spend Dems, or huge global causes like the pandemic and Putin's war.
What Republicans are good at is taking a superficial measure of voter sentiment and testing and responding with phony but validating accusations, claims, and sound bites. They will say whatever their research shows voters want to hear, whether it is true or not, and especially whether or not it has any chance of succeeding. Appearing to share voters' concerns of the moment and than casting blame is their whole schtick. They offer nothing but momentary vindictiveness.
Will that be enough to carry the midterms?
Here's the deal (as the President says): the GOP political strategy will work in red districts, it will not work in blue districts, and there will be mixed results in purple districts.
When about half of voters fall for a bag of air as a platform, we may get the government we deserve.
1
I think one way to get inflation under control is to have balanced budgets for Federal Government each year moving forward. How to help accomplish that. One way could be that no state gets more from the federal government in payouts than they pay to the federal governmemt in taxes. Lets see how many of the House Reps and Senators from the Red "Welfare" states would agree to that
1
Balanced budgets would not cure inflation. Present day inflation is due to many things a lot of them out of our control and a balanced budget in that case won’t tame it.
Inflation is all due to Supply side issue - not enough energy or food. All the Biden Admin can think of is drive down Demand and cause a recession - No Rate Hike/Cut or tax Hike/Cut will generate one loaf of bread or a barrel of oil.
Brutal Truth - only short term relief is to lift the Russian Sanctions. But Biden is willing to loose the mid-terms and let in a bunch of raging Trumpsters with all that entails - abortion rights, voting rights, minority rights. That the Progressive Dems backed down to the NeoCons is staggering. Tulsi was right.
It isn't the Biden Admin trying to drive down demand, but the Federal Reserve... whose chairman was appointed by one Donald Trump. Instead of continuing to raise interest rates, I'd rather see more targeted tax increases and further spending reductions to fight inflation. Either way, it is at this point mostly a global phenomenon decades in the making.
1
Reduce government spending and give the rich more money via trickle down. That is the standard Republican answer to inflation. Along with fear mongering about crime and immigrants, the GOP has pulled out the same old playlist. And yet again, it seems to be working.
2
Ernest Shackleton, the famous Arctic Explorer, is said to have placed an ad in the London Times on December 29, 1913 seeking men to join him on an expedition to the Antarctic. Although the ad never appeared in the paper that day, and still hasn’t been located in print in any other newspaper, it is supposed to have said:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”
27 men -- and one cat and a number of sled dogs -- answered his call and joined the expedition.
All that can be said about them today with absolute certainty is that none of them were Republicans.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Chippy
1
When have tax cuts and lies worked?
2
Average people don’t care about tax cuts. They know that they are hurting, and the Republicans give them someone to blame: immigrants, women, minorities, anyone that’s different from them can be the bogeyman. 
Blame over answers.
1
It's a pity that Americans do not see the relationship between what happened to Liz Truss and the markets in England, and what the Republicans plan to do here. That Americans mysteriously see Republicans as the more fiscally responsible party after how poorly they performed (again) under Trump is absolutely confounding.
2
Cutting taxes for the wealthy and cutting spending on the peasantry is the Republican solution to high inflation, to low inflation, to recession, and to economic growth. They cut taxes for rich dudes in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse, on a boat, with a goat, here or there, anywhere.
1
Republicans in their steadfast adherence to false economic and political theories to seek to recapture the House and the Senate this fall are marketing one of the greatest falsehoods of Reaganomics the false and busted theory of "trickle-down economics." This springs from intellectual laziness and sloppiness in the Republicans' failure to recognize America's real economic and social needs.
2
Nobody loves inflation, neither Republicans nor Democrats . I can not blame Biden or the Democrats for the situation. We should not forget that we had pandemic worldwide when everything were shutdown. The economic movement and productivity were slowed down to almost zero. The pandemic is not over yet. Then came Russian invasion of Ukraine. That contributed huge in the economy of America, Europe and all over the world. Biden has tried to keep his election promises. The Democrats should win easily in the midterm provided the voters will be using their brains not heart. Inflation has not decreased buying by the Americans.
1
No republican has mentioned the massive tax cuts for the Super Wealthy that has contributed to the economy nor the PPP loans and extended unemployment during COVID this all happened under TFG and his feckless administration.
1
Per usual, the Republicans either lie or mislead. First of all, inflation is a global phenomenon right now. Wars, climate change, pure greed all contribute to inflation. Joe Biden didn’t do it. And I trust the Republicans as far as I can spit.
1
Republicans continue to preach Tax Cuts to the wealthy as an inflation-fighting tactic. Wise up and stop promulgating their propaganda.
1
Every single time they get into office they cut taxes for rich people. Every. SINGLE. Time. And yet they continue to fool millions of people year after year.
3
I'm not an economist and neither are you Emily and Jim. But I did take econ 101 and more spending = more inflation.
1
@Jerry, You might want to retake that economics class. Cutting revenue, aka INCOME, while already IN debt results in...gasp!... even more debt! Which is exactly why trickle down economics is an epic failure Republicans refuse to understand...much like other sciences of today..
Oh goody. More "austerity" to freeze the economy and make everyone miserable just in time for the 2024 election.
4
Hey, I have an idea-- perhaps the top 0.1% of US households should give back Donald Trump’s $1.5tn tax cuts from three years ago.
10
I hope the GOP takes the House and Senate before 2024. They’ll be able to demonstrate how inept their policies are and that they’re all bluster and blunder.
Maybe people will get a clue that the GOP is all about maintaining power and negating any legislation that the democrats enacted.
THAT and “owning the libs” are their core objectives.
2
Roll back theTrump Tax cuts for a start and how about windfall profits tax on price gouging Corporations and Companies
5
Sounds like Liss Truss deja vu. That didn't work.
2
"Republicans denounce..." Inflation is always worse under Republicans, the national debt always increases under Republicans. They have no concern for regular people. Their policies ALWAYS favor the rich at the expense of everyone else. Anyone falling for their lies, hasn't been paying attention.
2
The only plan the republicans have, other than harrassing women and children along with the LGBT folks is and has been, lowering taxes for the wealthy and cutting spending on social needs. Republicans haven't had an original idea in ages.
5
If elimination of "waste, fraud and abuse" is actively pursued, the Republicans will be waging war with their strongest supporters, e.g., those attached to the teats of the Pentagon budget.
1
inflation started when he cut oil supply and raised oil prices ... the fix is reversing the dotards decisions
1
If you mean that Biden “cut oil supplies and raised oil prices,” then you are being ridiculous.
Biden released oil from the strategic oil reserves and at least tried to negotiate with the Saudis.
The fact that he may not have approved some drilling on public land is a non-issue—developing new production takes years and has no effect on todays prices. Pipeline to Canada cancelled? Still gets here by train.
Americans have a short memory for oil prices. When gas is cheap, we buy large trucks, forgetting that gas can go up. When it does, we complain, usually about the president. It’s like Lucy holding the football for Charlie, again and again.
@hd If that's so, why is inflation a global problem? Oh, I guess you didn't think of that.
I have an idea. Let’s collect billions in unpaid taxes! Oh wait, Republicans want to fire 92,000 IRS workers, you know, the jobs party.
Republicans have admitted openly that they planned to stymie Biden’s plans. They hate the federal government and want to make sure it doesn’t work. Or rather, they want people to see it doesn’t work.
They voted against price gouging at the pump, capping insulin prices, letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, solving the infant formula shortage, infrastructure (that they’re now begging for $ for projects). They likely voted against extending the ACA subsidies. The list goes on.
And they used every one of these issues to bash Biden.
They will do nothing for you and me.
7
@Artichoke Government jobs are a deadweight loss to the real economy. Less of them is more for us.
@J. Stuart Avery
You'll need to prove that, using factual analysis.
The first thing to do when in a hole is to stop digging.
Even if the Republicans do nothing, it will be a vast improvement over Biden’s and Jayapal’s efforts to spend every penny we have.
Where is the Dem Party?
Why aren't they grabbing these issues and
plastering them all over the airwaves and online?
Why aren't they challenging the Republican lies--
The Republicans lie repeatedly, so the Dems must counter TWICE as often.
Their efforts against the vicious Republicans is so insipid, it's infuriating.
5
Republicans are eager to close the barn doors long after the cows have left the barn. And now are about to set the barn on fire.
2
Republicans denounce inflation? How about denouncing lies about 2020 election. Gimme a break
4
The difference between the U.S. and the U.K. is now on display. Will any G.O.P. member denounce tax breaks for the wealthy as some Tories did? Nope. Those charlatans know full well that the wealth will accumulate in their piggy banks.
When will the Republicans be repudiated for selling the trickle-down myth?
4
After printing anywhere from $5 -7 TRILLION, Biden has the gumption to say "We, the democrats are the ones fiscally responsible" ... really? This statement alone proves how reckless Biden's words and actions have been.
@Victor FYI, deficit spending under Trump was even more. Look it up, the same "trickle down" policies championed by the current group of Republicans mirror the approach taken by Reagan, the Bushes and Trump -tax cuts that never pay for themselves or trickle down - that resulted in some of the highest increases in debt. So if you think voting Republican will lead to sounder fiscal policy, check again.
Does that mean the Democrats are any better? Yes, but only slightly. The reason is tax cuts. For the past forty years, Republicans have claimed tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations will pay for themselves and they never do. They talk about reducing spending, but because defense is such a huge part of the budget, they never do it.
2
Senator Cassidy said: “The very fact that Republicans are poised to take back majorities in both chambers is an indictment of the policies of this administration,”.
No it's not.
It's easy to fool Americans. Send out enough lying politicians and misleading cliches and the undereducated public will believe almost anything including that Trump is going to help the little guy, COVID is cured by sunshine, and tax cuts stimulate the economy.
5
Their platform seems to be: “we’ll fix inflation by not giving you any money during the next crisis".
1
Following the teachings of Supply Side Jesus, I see...
I hear that Liz Truss has just opened up her schedule, so perhaps she could offer some advice to the Republicans. What could go wrong?
1
Defunding the IRS is a blatant and transparent ploy to allow rich and corporations to avoid paying the taxes they owe. The rest of us will continue to pay. This is subversion. I haven’t heard a rationale for why they think this is necessary, just some nonsense about 87000 new IRS agents with guns. By show does something this ridiculous resonate with voters?
2
@Doug Lowenthal
There is no number of additional IRS agents that will be able to extract the higher taxes you want to see from large corporations and wealthy individuals. Those entities employ extremely skilled tax lawyers able to take advantage of the loopholes that were created by the IRS for the very purpose of getting large corporations and wealthy individuals out of paying high nominal tax rates.
The only people that will be punished and made to pay more with increased IRS enforcement capabilities are those who cannot afford highly skilled tax lawyers and accountants, i.e. the middle class and small business owners.
US consumers caused the very inflation they're complaining about when they went on a shopping binge in 2020 and 2021. fueled by stimulus payments and tax cuts and made worse by other supply-side problems. This had a significant impact on the global supply chain, exporting US problems, including inflation, to the rest of the world --- pretty much setting up a vicious circle. However, there is now evidence that these supply chains are unclogging and with it a concurrent reduction in goods prices and inflation, aided by consumers moving again to services from goods.
Eventually I am reading a title that reminds people that Republicans have nothing but lies to offer. They don’t have a plan. Period.
5
No one expected a plan from the GOP goons, besides stripping away our access to education, healthcare, and reproductive rights.
I have a young daughter and I hope she doesn’t have to grow up with the willfully ignorant and openly hateful Republicans in power.
3
Money for the rich. Service cuts for the rest. The Republican Party is the Liz Truss of America.
5
When the Martians invade and threaten to take over, the GOP will offer tax cuts as a remedy.
3
Yep. Well, tax cuts and collaboration.
1
What's new? Republicans are incapable of doing much of anything but scaring the electorate with their television ads and lousy candidates.
2
don't ever forget all the republican lies being t0old.
and that mccarthy is runni9ng for re-election on a promise to rip this country apart.
5
Doesn’t matter. Even though Republicans are historically bad for the economy, most voters are too ignorant to understand where their interests lie. All they care about is gas prices. Anything beyond that is too taxing to comprehend.
7
Obviously the Brits are smarter than Americans. America is going to get what they deserve from Republicans and they are going to get it good and hard.
5
And the winner is, once again, the demagoguery that corporate loving, inept, greedy, obstructionist GOPers spew all over the country for their self-interest.
3
It might sound silly but Biden's "Mega MAGA Trickledown" statement is pretty on point.
3
Isn’t this what Liz Truss unsuccessfully tried to do in the UK? I guess learning from other people’s failures isn’t important.
5
@Jason - at least Liz Truss admitted and apologized for her mistake, and had the decency to step down. What Biden's administration has done for the exploding inflation caused by their money printing ? Nothing but denying and denying ! Blaming the "global inflation" instead, as if they has nothing to do with it.
The GOP plan for everything is to give more $$$ to the wealthy and see what happens.
7
Why has this not been more widely reported? Why, instead of going on endlessly about polling and "leads" and "momentum" and manufactured narratives which mean essentially nothing when it comes to the final results next month, have NYT reporters not been actually asking candidates what they would do to address inflation?!
8
I too, have been wondering why the media asked the question of what ‘the republicans plans for dealing with inflation, a world wide problem, and the possibility of world wide recession resulting from their efforts?’ No one asks but everyone just dumbly goes along with the long held belief that republicans are better with money. The party of fantastical and magical beliefs about the economy is good with money? HAH, HAH.
1
Yes, the polling jazz was annoying. But they’ve reported it again and again and well, again. Not to mention that these clowns have screamed it from the rooftops.
What more do you want?
amazing how they conveniently forget the 2017 tax giveaway that added nearly 3 trillion, read it, trillion, to the national debt! I don'tremember President Biden being consulted. Republican competence makes me laugh..mor even than the loons that believe it!
7
It is ironic, change that to sad, that people think the economy is in better hands during Republican administrations when the empirical facts say the opposite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_under_Democratic_and_Republican_presidents#:~:text=Historically%2C%20the%20United%20States%20economy,presidents%20since%20World%20War%20II.
7
And I denounce republicans . . .
Didn’t work. They’re still here.
Maybe if we dance while we say the magic spell
What plans?
1
I wonder if the Times' economists--like Paul Krugman--think that the Biden plan to continue our current masochistic economic course path will "help."
I wonder why you think that tax cuts for the wealthy and a stick in the eye for everybody else will work this time around? Is it because you don’t know that Trump ballooned the national debt by a third and that Republicans have presided over all three economic crashes this century, or because you just don’t care?
1
@Robert (1) Given the choice between being poor and being wealthy, a normal person will opt for the latter. (2) The way you get wealthy is not by punishing the wealthy but by creating economic policies that (i) don't spend what you don't got; and (ii) allow those who have saved and earned wealth to keep it, not have it coopted by Washington wastrels.
Glad you finally did this story.
3
DiSantis of Florida has the answer Mass deaths
DEATHS FROM COVID 19 IN THE TIME OF VACCINATION
JULY 1 2021 -JULY 1 2022
NEW YORK 830 PER MILLION POPULATION
FLORIDA 1784 PER MILLION POPULATION
USA 1258 per million
Republicans are very good at killing people with poor public health programs . That is the plan
14
@Emeritus And yet he's leading in the race for governor. Voters in Florida are hopeless.
2
Tell me something I don't know
3
What took so long for this article to be written?
4
Let’s also denounce that water is wet.
This is hypocrisy at its finest.
GOP who is steering the ship?
2
If you are over forty - your number one concern should be the promised cuts to medicare and social security
I believe the republican promises by Rick Scott and Ron Johnson to cut the programs that are the major income source for most American seniors. They want to cut corporate taxes and pay for it with cuts to SS and medicare.
Think about that long and hard when you vote for your senate candidate on Nov 8th.
38
@Deirdre
People need to remember that as wage slaves we pay for Medicare and Social Security in the form of payroll deductions.
Republicans have long sought to brand Medicare and Social Security as entitlement programs. They are not.
6
So basically the Republicans are proposing the exact same policies that former UK PM Liz Truss proposed in her mini-budget. The markets plunged, the Bank of England had to intervene to prop up the long end of the UK bond market, and even members of her own party revolted against her "brilliant" tax cut plan at a time of double-digit inflation and whilst the Bank of England was engaged in rapid tightening of monetary policy. And so she goes down as the PM with the shortest tenure in British history. None of this apparently has penetrated the concrete fortress around Republican economic "thinking." Remarkable but entirely unsurprising.
23
The idea that inflation is political (one party caused it, one party can ‘fix’ it) is gaining popularity just as globalization, including central banks, wars, and oil, is making it clear this is not the case. The Federal Reserve, as well, is about to find out the limits of its interest rate policy in this regard, but expect the news to report the levels of political pressure on it.
8
Inflation is about prices. Lower prices, not taxes.
14
Oh, ok. I lowered prices.
I. too, "denounce inflation".
So what?
Unless I have a viable solution to it, my denunciation is
so much hot air.
Our dear Republican friends propose tax cuts to
"solve" inflation, which is simply another type of
spending. Which is inflationary.
Thus, they've proven that unless its a divisive wedge issue, the GOP's solution to everything is to cut the taxes of the rich.
Why vote for them?
29
@Jerseytime I think not throwing trillions of dollars by simply printing more or transferring debt from students to taxpayers is part of the equation. Blaming the president for the economy worked for Clinton in 92, Reagan in 80 and Carter in 76 so it’s hardly a new strategy. In retrospect (as I’m old enough to remember), other than 80, I don’t think the economy is anywhere near as bad as it is today.
Depends on definition of 'bad'. Inflation in many areas including education, healthcare, real estate existed for years.
2
I think we know the why however unbelievable it may be.
The GOP and conservatives clearly don't care about "what works" or what data says. They're too worried about "wokeness" to bother with such things as actual data on economic growth (sorry trickle-down doesn't work), climate change, Russia, or the crises that define our time. They're trying to go back to the 50s when minorities "knew their place."
The "modern" GOP has no place in contemporary government.
29
The progressive economic welfare redistribution program has contributed to the worst inflation in over 40 years. Why work when you can sit home and get paid. Time to dial back the entitlements and demand that people take some responsibility for their own circumstances. We have now officially run out of other people’s money.
2
Evidence of inflation worldwide contradicts your assessment.
3
@Dave just saying it does not make it so. The national unemployment rate is somewhere around 3.5%. If you want to indict retired and elderly social security recipients who have paid their working dues and choose to no longer work go ahead and say so. The problem is more complicated than having simple opinions against social safety nets. The Republicans have controlled both houses of government before and we are still waiting for them to make us an economic powerhouse and all we have gotten is greater income disparity. How’s that future looking ?
2
That is what you get when you lower taxes for the rich. The Dems politics just made obvious the price of non-inflation. The price was inability of many people to buy necessary things as food and shelter, because of inadequate salaries. Tax cut didn't have same effect, because it have money to fews that already have money more than they need. Redistribution is necessary, because I igual distribution concentrates the money in the hands of few, living others desperate.
Always repeal tax increases, NOT. Take the money and put it back into the economy. Repair or upgrade our deteriorating infrastructure. Stop attempting to privatize or eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, TANF, etc. Government is not a private business and should not be run like one. Government is supposed to serve the citizens and residents of a country. It's funded by taxes all of us pay.
The high tax rates of the 1950s didn't hurt prosperity here. But the tax cuts since have hurt most working and retired Americans. Some of our politicians seem to believe that their sole purpose in office is to hand out tax breaks to their richest supporters, tell the rest of us that we're failures for not being born rich or working 3 jobs at once, to have lucrative jobs awaiting them if they lose an election or, to stay in power by any means possible.
Taxes are the price we pay for a government and, one hopes, a competent one at that. The GOP doesn't offer a competent or good government strategy any longer. Their sole interest is being in power and they will tell the public whatever lies they can to accomplish that.
Interestingly enough, they are on the government dole as well. We pay them. They are wasting our tax dollars every time they obstruct something that can help us. Perhaps they need to be weaned off of their dependence on their taxpayer subsidized salaries and perks.
15
Sure, they have a "plan"1) Cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid thus shredding the "social medical safety net".
2) Enact Trump Tax Cut 2.0 - funneling yet another pile of money to the super wealthy 1% or less who don't need it - except to fund their 3rd or 4th mansion/vacation homes or that hard to resist brand new around the world yacht (when they get bored with their private jets.)
3) Blame middle and working class struggles on those "tax and spend Libs".
32
It’s clear that Republican proposals will be worse than ineffective. They’ll be disastrous. We can only hope that it will put the Democrats in a stronger position to take back Congress and retain the presidency in 2024, and that we can recover from the damage they are so stubbornly determined to cause.
7
Republicans don’t think. That’s their problem. As the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability has documented time after time, taxes have no effect on growth. Cutting taxes though will add to the national debt at a time when reducing debt and even amortizing debt the government owes to itself will reduce inflation. Republicans are by and large obtuse: they are the party of privilege and noblesse oblige. They are not the answer to the economic problems of our time.
11
Tax cuts? Corporations are already posting record profits from price gouging, whoops I mean inflation.
I don’t see how giving more money to the wealthy and less to the rest of the population is going to fix anything.
Republicans love to complain, but come up short on ideas to fix the problems they complain about.
24
@Left Of Center
Republicans do not solve problems. They create problems as a smoke screen to keep the sheep (their base) focused on all the wrong issues.
1
In every Republican administration the ratio of debt to GDP goes up. The whole drama around inflation and debt from the republicans is just a cover to give the rich another tax cut and dump on the poor and working class by cutting Medicare and Social Security.
Voters need to wake up a see the real deal with republicans.
15
Complaints, criticisms, name-calling - Republicans are very good at these things. Policies? Ideas? Actions that are positive and creative with regard democratic ideals? Nope.
8
No doubt the answer to high inflation is another tax cut for those struggling to afford their multiple homes, a garage of new, luxury cars, and other amenities of the good life. If we have to cut the safety net for the less fortunate, so be it.
12
Inflation is global. We just saw the British political system turned up side down by it. It’s all over the world. Anyone who thinks Kevin McCarthy as Speaker can change that should consider a membership in the Flat Earth Society.
36
@Aaron Yes and no. In Japan its running at around 3%, and, other than the UK, it’s lower in Europe as well.
@T Smith
The only European Union country with lower inflation than us is France. The average for the European Union in September of 2022 10.9.
Not true. It is not lower in the EU
The GOP recipe is getting gullible people who will ask no questions about the GOP's actual plan to vote against their own self interest. And the Democrats are guilty of letting them get away with it for basically forever.
16
Sure let's cut taxes for the rich and encourage growth to tame inflation. And then let's cut medicare and social security so the elderly cannot afford anything. Look what happened in England with Truss. Lots of luck Republicans!
15
There's no real evidence that raising interest rates will do anything other than put the economy into a recession. The point is that economists of all stripes are clueless about what to do.
3
Americans are dumb. They’ll vote to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
8
So the Republicans have learned nothing by watching Conservative party leader Liz Truss’ destruction of Great Britain’s economy by applying tax & spending cuts over the last five weeks? Jesus Christ we’re all freaking doomed.
7
You know what else doesn't help with inflation?
Forgiving student loans and flooding the nation with $400 billion in free money.
4
@J.
Forgiving student loans will lift a crushing weight off the back of millions of Americans. It will only help the economy.
2
I don't see how flooding the nation with billions of tax cut helps inflation.
2
The republicans don't have a plan. The last supposed tax cut cost me and my family over $6K. The republicans just want to reduce taxes for the rich and their corporate masters.
28
The Big Lie embraced by Republican officials and candidates has now expanded to include all their campaign rhetoric. Paul Ryan's lie about Trump's tax cut lowering the national debt and reinvigorating the economy has been dusted off this time around.
Their real plan is simple: Zero in on whatever angers voters and then promise them the mood with a barrage of balderdash to make it sound like a sincere promise. And if there's one thing Republicans are good at, it's campaign balderdash.
9
Zeldin revealed no economic plan to combat inflation at last night’s gubernatorial debate. That says everything. He was also afraid to say polio vaccinations should be mandatory for school age children.
10
Suppose the government spent over $700 billion every year without producing any goods or services that the public directly uses? Of course it actually does spend this much on the military, and this is a major reason why inflation will never go to zero (except in a recession).
2
Plans? Other than complaining and creating diversions through culture wars, what plans to Republicans actually have?
Cut undefined “wasteful” spending? Please.
13
tax cut == stimulus.
Its as easy as that.
3
@A As easy as that. SImple minds...what does a tax could do for, say, Elon Musk?
2
Why do you need stimulus when there is inflation?
The only thing that will fix “inflation” is abolishing corporate greed and making corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Do you really thing Republicans are going to do that?
10
... Many voters do have the impression that Democrats went too far on spending, pushing up the deficit & adding to inflation.
And it is true that Dems pushed through some partisan spending increases.. and we're hoping for far more (up to $6trillion).
-- Now maybe there is absolutely no connection between Dems spending & inflation (as many Democrats claim). But most voters find that hard to believe.
Certainly Republicans are going to take back some control of Congress.. the only question is how much.
1
Many voters believe that the huge tax cuts to the wealthy will help them in the sense of trickle-down and do not see how the GOP only want to help ease the tax burden of the wealthy. Many voters watch the same videos of single incidents of violence over and over again and believe that it’s the Democrats fault yet they refuse to equate the GOP cry of more people more guns to the mass shootings accross our country.
Many people think the insurrection was just a silly protest or believe it was staged.
We might see the GOP take over. Then, say bye bye to any government funding to people who need it and hello to endless tax breaks for the wealthy.
Say goodbye to any government help to replace or repair your home after a hurricane and hello to more natural disasters brought on by global warming.
1
@mike
Year Deficit As % of GDP
2020 -3,132.4 -15.0
2021 -2,775.3 -12.4
2022 -1,415.0 -5.8
@Paul Herr
Perhaps... -- But the deficit is also at a record amount..$30+trillion. And inflation is at a record level.
Dems are simply having a hard time showing what tangible benefit they've brought to the country in two years of control.
The perception of high crime, high inflation, high deficits, high spending... and uneven leadership... has taken root.
--- It didn't have to be that way..
I guess the conservative maxim of free markets motivated by the profit incentive is not enough to mitigate supply chain issues that are causing inflation. The cafeteria-conservatives in Congress are quick to shed their free market values when wealthy people get inconvenienced by high prices. Let’s havenot forget the ten million new jobs under this administration and the low unemployment rate.
We have millions of food-insecure Americans, so let’s cut taxes for wealthy people, right?
10
RE: Economists Expect Their Plans to Help
Their plans are simple?
"Believe me. If you vote for me inflation will go away. Gas and milk will be $1 again."
47
@Marie, FEW economists expect GOP plans to help.
3
@Emme
I apologize for missing the "few" when i copied and pasted the headline and not noticing. It does look odd that way I admit. Too bad we can't edit our comments. My poor eyes don't always catch my mistakes.
Inflation is being driven by fiscal as well as monetary policy. The massive spending bills that gave out all those stimmy checks, stimulated demand by design. Most of that money went to random folks that had not actually even lost work or income. Retirees, young people living on their mom's couches bought jet skis and bitcoin and new couches.
Higher demand shifts supply:demand equilibriums, resulting in higher prices (exacerbated by supply chain constraints).
Policies that inhibit new supply of oil and natural gas exacerbated shortages and directly drove up prices. We are all paying for that with higher gasoline prices, higher electricity prices, and higher food prices.
Fertilizer costs and prices are directly tied to natural gas, fyi. The coming food scarcity is being driven by extremely high input costs including fertilizer, tractor parts, diesel fuel, transportation costs. Scary.
And, yes the unintended consequences of green rules contributed greatly to our current high inflation pain. An awful tax on the poor. Tragic.
14
This is a thoughtful analysis. But perhaps the bigger factor omitted from your examination, and arguably the largest driver of inflation, is the war in Ukraine and Russian assaults on energy prices in Europe combined with Saudi Arabia’s desire to snub Washington by inducing demand by decreasing oil supplies. That these factors were not included in your critique, especially as weighty as they are, makes the analysis incomplete.
25
@Joe You How does the amount of increased corporate profits during this period of economic instability fit into your explanation? Are you aware of companies like Nestle literally stating that they have increased their prices, while reducing production, simply because they can?
45
What’s also missing is the mystery of staggering corporate profits all through the pandemic and now through inflation.
The lack of curiosity about the connection between profits and high prices is a wonder. But focus on that college student sleeping on their parent’s couch. And not the millions who lost their jobs.
46
Why is there so little reporting on what the the actual primary international driver of inflation is, namely energy costs? If people understood the real drivers of inflation they wouldn't be so susceptible to the political demagoguery this article implicitly highlights.
In the U.S. only 15% of natural gas is used by the consumer at home, and it's similar in the EU where natural gas prices have been through the roof and inflation surpasses that in the U.S. And only 50% of refinery product is gasoline, and its price differential from a year ago is dwarfed by those differentials for diesel and jet fuel. All energy cost increases effect consumer prices eventually and in a myriad of CPI items. The indirect energy cost effects on CPI are currently much larger here in the U.S. than the direct ones.
And the energy cost increases of the past year trace back almost entirely to ramifications from Russia's imperialism in Ukraine. This seems to be better understood in Europe than here in the U.S.
35
@NJK you are confused, about the drivers of inflation. Biden and "green" rules have shut down a massive amount of US refinery capacity. Thus gasoline prices are high. Biden has prevented US energy pipelines, repeatedly, and discouraged exploration and production of US oil and gas.
Inflation is being driven by fiscal as well as monetary policy. The massive spending bills that gave out all those stimmy checks, stimulated demand by design. Most of that money went to random folks that had not actually even lost work or income. Retirees, young people living on their mom's couches bought jet skis and bitcoin and new couches.
Higher demand shifts supply:demand equilibriums, resulting in higher prices (exacerbated by supply chain constraints).
Policies that inhibit new supply of oil and natural gas exacerbated shortages and directly drove up prices. We are all paying for that with higher gasoline prices, higher electricity prices, and higher food prices.
Fertilizer costs and prices are directly tied to natural gas, fyi. The coming food scarcity is being driven by extremely high input costs including fertilizer, tractor parts, diesel fuel, transportation costs. Scary.
And, yes the unintended consequences of green rules contributed greatly to our current high inflation pain. An awful tax on the poor. Tragic.
There are several factors driving inflation. One is supply side shortages.
The global supply chain was disrupted by covid lockdowns, and much of it has never recovered. There's little that congress can do about this in the short term, but acknowledging a problem that that helped create would be a good start.
There are now numerous studies that show that lockdowns did not stop the spread of the virus, but had a devastating impact on the economy.
Then there's profit taking by many big corporations, especially in filed like processed foods, where a few companies basically have a monopoly.
Congress could address this price gouging but haven't shown much interest in doing so.
Then there's the housing shortage. Some estimates are that nearly 25% of inflation is being driven by rising rents and mortgage interest rates.
While the Fed is an independent agency, it's not beyond political pressure. It's just that the current pressures are coming from the hedge fund boys.
Congress needs to be a counterweight for average people.
Then there's energy. Here, congress can act by imploring Biden to issue an EO freezing prices for 90 days. That might slow down the rate of inflation, allowing small economic players to catch their breath.
There's' no easy way out. But we can at least recognize how bad decisions contributed to this round of inflation and not make those mistakes again.
12
There may be multiple causes contributing to inflation, but let’s not allow your Covid disinformation to take root: There is no evidence-based science that the lockdown did not prevent the spread of Covid. In fact, quite the opposite. Science tells us that the lockdown DID prevent disease spread. Now of course, we can discuss the relative value of containment vs economic, psychological, etc impacts (and of course, we would have to discuss whether a policy of non-containment could have had worse repercussions in these other areas). But let’s start with the shared, objective facts that containment prevented Covid spread.
23
The health-related effectiveness of Covid shutdowns is by now a distraction from the economic results. It's water under the bridge. Inflation and other current economic factors and what we do or do not do about them are a big part of what will happen on Election Day.
Really, the only reason to keep harping on Covid measures no longer in effect is that resistance to science was a big issue for the MAGA crowd and it still gets them riled up, making the current issues less important than a grudge match.
2
I had no colds nor flu during 2020 and 2021 because of social distancing. I think that the studies you cite were flawed.
3
Tax cuts, the traditional Republican answer to every problem, puts more money into circulation which leads to MORE inflation. They know this. That's why they grudgingly agreed that the Fed's raise in interest rates (putting less money into circulation) was the right answer.
40
@lhc In reality they would do little. Nearly 90% of the Trump tax cuts went to corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Much of it was reinvested in the stock market, driving up share prices to unsupported levels (which partly explains the recent 20-30% drop despite other peak economic performance) and real estate. Where is the evidence that tax cuts benefitted the general economy?
67
@lhc it sure doesn’t do that in the states with the most money sloshing around. The trump tax “cuts” absolutely destroyed the ability to take huge itemized deductions that were previously commonplace in CA, NY, etc.
2
Where? In their back pocket, where else?
There never was, to my knowledge, a NET spending cut. Republicans used their plans to cut spending on areas that they do not support - social, environmental and the like programs - while greatly boosting programs they support, primarily defense. I believe that this actually resulted in higher NET federal budgets along with less tax revenue - aka higher deficits?
81
do you really think the MAGA faction can stitch any of that together on their own?
2
@MR A great point. The only net spending cuts that happen seem to be in our households.
1
@MR There was a large increase in social spending that Republicans accepted in return for their tax cut. In hindsight, no action by either party would have been preferable.
It's hard to feed a family of four with tax cuts for millionaires.
It's hard to have a federal government when the IRS can't do its basic job and collect taxes.
The GOP solution for the USA is a combination of feudalism, anarchy and a gun under every pillow.
The GOP is on course to reduce the USA to third-world status.
629
And,so far, they have been succeeding brilliantly!
25
@Socrates - thank you for your comments. Always liked your classic line, "Take two tax cuts and call us from the morgue"
33
@Socrates
I've been describing this country as "undeveloping" since November 2016.
33
Let us not forget which party was large and in charge when the market crashed in 1987 and who was in charge and brought on the great recession at the end of his (Bush's) term. Two examples of how inept they are at managing the economy.
Their only trick is tax cuts for wealthy as they sell "trickle down" to the ignorant electorate that a building ladders along the border.
97
@D.Harlem
And remember when Republicans said that their giveaway 40 percent tax cut on major corporations would result in these corporations putting these savings into future business expansions when in reality most of these savings were used to simply buy back their own shares and hence enrich their major shareholders while also increasing our federal deficit by trillions of dollars (much of it still to come).
14
@D.Harlem - "A number of explanations have been offered as to the cause of the crash, although none may be said to have been the sole determinant. Among these are computer trading and derivative securities, illiquidity, trade and budget deficits, and overvaluation. " - George Washington University analysis of the 1987 crash.
1
@D.Harlem
Democrats controlled congress in both 1987 and 2008. 99% sure the congress passes the budgets and makes the laws....
"Proposed tax and spending cuts by the GOP..."
Remember what the definition of insanity is?
"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
They need to have a long talk with Liz Truss.
Is this 'brain-dead' or simple 'dry-rot'?
Hard to tell anymore.
61
Doesn't matter if it might work or not as long as it's what they think their voters want to hear.
The question is: an Republicans win elections by appealing only to their own voters?
3
@Pottree
The numbers say no.
There have always been more people signing on a Democrats than Republicans, simply because it's been a matter of "class".
Then more signed up as Independents than either Dems or R's.
That holds today:
#1) Independents
#2) Dems
#3) R's.
Since the R's have given up any pretense of offering the public a comprehensive program of goals or budgets, then the discussion has moved to why Independents can't take the role of Libertarian/Republicans.
They have made themselves irrelevant, but, having taken over the Supreme Court, they are even more "powerful".
Just don't confuse the two words, "relevant" and "powerful".
If it is a numbers game, can the R's win?
No.
But after you have rigged the system, then the numbers don't matter.
1
the NYTimes says the public isn't demanding details from Republicans. isn't that the job of the press which has access to these politicians?
226
@stlyiayia
The press hasn't done their job in years, they ask republicans questions they respond with lies then it's on to the next question. They are in the business of selling things and making a profit and soundbites. That's it. They never hold any politician to account.
15
@stlyiayia Actually, the press does demand it. The GOP refuses to answer, and the public seems happy with that result.
12
The NYT got the details, which is what this article’s about. The plan is, tax cuts for the wealthy, service cuts for you.
That’s the whole thing. Ain’t no more.
Seems to me you could at least pay attention.
And yes, it is your job in a democracy.
14
Got a question for everyone:
Has there EVER been a time when "tax [cuts for the rich and corporations] and spending cuts" (and we should probably add in massive deregulation, aka "getting the dead hand of government off the backs of our job creators") WASN'T the policy prescription of our Publican Party?
Their "solution" for recessions: "tax [cuts for the rich and corporations] and spending cuts."
Their "solution" for boom times: "tax [cuts for the rich and corporations] and spending cuts."
And, of course, their "solution" for inflation: "tax [cuts for the rich and corporations] and spending cuts."
If one didn't know any better, one might almost be tempted to wonder whether such a monomaniacal fixation wasn't a bit disingenuous?
147
@smartalek
The Republican Party is and has always been the Party of the Rich and Well Off. So giving tax cuts to the rich and wealthiest Corporations while cutting spending for the poorest and most needy Americans plus cutting benefits For Social Security and Medicare is the fairer way to cut inflation? This is absolute craziness.
11
And we needed an article about this? Anyone with any sense knows they have no plan, never have a plan, and do nothing to help out the country. So, this is not news. Vote for democrats.
69
Sadly, there are entire states run by republicans where many people’s political philosophy comes down to “Democrats bad for economy, Republicans good for economy.” That’s the extent of their knowledge.
Most Texans, for instance, could not tell you why they think this true, because they don’t understand how the economy works or how political policy ties into the economy.
The only reason they think it is true is because they were told that by someone else (usually their parents, a preacher, or a conservative media personality) and since then they have done exactly nothing to expand their knowledge in this area.
So, yes, these articles are necessary. If only one person who automatically votes Republican without ever thinking about it starts to actually reflect in-depth upon the reality of their situation rather than continue on in the line of shallow, propaganda-driven thinking they’re stuck in, it’s a win.
1
@Reggie
Stopping the Dems IS their plan !
For many people, that is enough.
1
Do Republicans voters not know that inflation is a GLOBAL problem right now that is caused by a pandemic and a major war going on in Ukraine?
Americans whine that it costs too much money to fill up their gas guzzlers….well wait until the GOP cuts taxes on the rich and comes after Social Security and Medicare.
Seriously…this country
130
@JR_star - oh c'mon , the narrative of the inflation being global won't get the democrats off the hook, instead, one could even argue that Biden's dollar printing is not only responsible for the inflation in US, but also responsible for the global-wise inflation as USD is used all over the world.
1
@JR_star
The $3.49/gallon I paid at the pump yesterday would be considered dirt cheap by most Europeans.
Inflation in the UK is over 10%.
Americans think they should somehow be immune to a worldwide problem brought on by the more than 2-year upheaval in global markers wrought by COVID, and the disruption in energy caused by the Ukraine war.
But it seems that Americans prefer to blame it all on whoever is in the White House at the moment, believing that someone, somewhere has a magic wand that will make it all go away.
12
The GOP is counting on the fact that their voters DO NOT know inflation is a global issue, don't care, and have no idea what that means.
They're counting on the assumption their voters can't see beyond the end of their own noses. Remember, most of them are the people who are afraid to even set foot in those big city cesspools of crime and degradation. And they hang in the word of folks like Tucker Carlson like the revival tent preacher he is.
8
I would rather be financially bankrupt than morally bankrupt as many Republicans have proven themselves to be, especially maga rinos. Republican "leaders" have voted against bill after bill but then go back home to take credit for every improvement made because of those bills. What do Republicans stand for today? Other than lies, hypocrisy, corruption, bigotry, sexism etc. Nothing one would recognize as American exceptionalism at its best..
52
Tax cuts to big money is the cornerstone of “trickle down” economics. Have we learned nothing over the past 30 plus years? It doesn’t work, people!!!
41
Of course they never had a plan except to just yell “patriot” and “freedom”. Surely they can’t yell “free market solutions” because it’s the “free markets” that have resulted in most of this mess.
19
More evidence that neither party is fiscally good for the US. I am a registered Democrat and I sympathize with students on loans, however, the Biden administration strategy is fiscally irresponsible and this has been the opinion of economists on both sides of the aisle. PPP was needed and I am glad the Trump administration started the program, but, it wasn't targeted enough and Biden continued the program for far too long. Trump's China taxes are also negatively impacting inflation. When will we get a government that is fiscally responsible?
6
@Rohan Shah ---" When will we get a government that is fiscally responsible?"
We won't.
@Rohan Shah ... "When will we get a government that is fiscally responsible?"....Let's see. The annual budget deficit increased under Regan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump. The annual budget deficit decreased under Clinton, Obama, and so far under Biden. Republicans may continue to say they are more fiscally responsible than Democrats, but the facts are contrary to their claim. And if they are seriously worried about the National debt, why are Republicans opposed to funding the IRS at a level that allows them to more effectively collect the taxes that are owed?
@Rohan Shah I contend that investment in infrastructure and rebuilding domestic manufacturing capability (the CHIPS act) are fiscally responsible. Trump and the GOP talked about both. Biden actually delivered; albeit a somewhat smaller investment than intended due to Republican obstruction.
Let's be real, Republicans knew that both were likely to deliver real progress and benefits, giving Democrats something to take credit for. Denying credit was their only motivation for trying to block these programs, not any altruism over controlling spending. They don't care one bit about anything but keeping Republicans in power.
GOP plans won't help curb inflation, but they WILL continue to funnel our wealth up to the small few at the top and large corporations.
The explicit, written down and published GOP plan is: cut social insurance programs Americans have paid into all of their working lives (Social Security and Medicare) while also (once again) cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations in hopes that magically, somehow, THIS time, trickle-down voodoo economics will work.
The GOP economic plan hasn't worked EVER. Britain just tried it again with Truss, and their economy exploded.
But Republicans can keep exploding our deficit with enormous tax breaks to the 0.01% and large corporate entities that have never, not once paid for themselves, because voters rarely hear the real data on GOP vs. Democrats' economic results.
The results are clear, even if our media won't report it over and over and over again - The Republican Party is the party of plutocrats. The Democratic Party is the party of the working, professional, and middle classes.
110
@AMinNC We really need Cheri Beasley in the Senate, and keep Hines out of the House.
1
@AMinNC
The biggest scam foisted upon America's working class is that Republicans are fighting for them. Republicans talk about tax cuts, but neglect to mention that their cuts went to corporations and the highest earners. But I guess if you yell "freedom" and "2nd amendment" loud enough, folks won't notice you are stabbing them in the back.
1
In modern American history, there are few, if any, more striking disconnects than the perennial claim made by Republicans that they are the party of economic savvy and the record of their actual performance in managing economic affairs.
175
The GOP is the party of economic savvy: they know just what measures will benefit their constituents, even though they come at the expense of everybody else.
Now, just WHO are their constituents is the actual question. The GOP has succeeded in duping millions of voters into voting AGAINST their own interests but FOR the interests of a relative handful of billionaires and the giant corporations and financial institutions they control.
2
@Michael P. Williams The only thing that comes close is the lie that Republicans are better for US National Security. From Bush/Cheney's disastrous forever war to remake the Middle East into libertarian freetopia, to Trump's giving away/selling out top secrets to the Russians and God knows who else, Republicans have weakened our country and undermined our national security. But the myth of the strong Republican Daddy dies hard. Plus, news outlets need those bothsides clicks and eyeballs.
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@Michael P. Williams
And that claim by Republicans is rarely every challenged by the media.
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I pay a lot of taxes in NJ. But I don’t mind. A strong government is required to get us through these tough times. Tax cuts, on the other hand, are not the way out if this. All this tells me that the GOP really have no plans.
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@JR I've never minded paying taxes either. I do, however, mind a great deal how our tax dollars are spent. In a more civilized country we would spend our collective tax dollars on health care, education, infrastructure, and other things that benefit society as a whole. Instead, we overfund the military and give the rich/corporations tax cuts. Expect more of the latter from Republicans.
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@JR High taxes do not necessarily equate to strong government, in many instances the benefits accrue solely to public sector unions.
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@JR I'm paying an insane amount in taxes living in the SF Bay Area. Probably as bad as your situation. Although I agree they are for the common good, and necessary, I'm pretty frustrated how the Democrats are prioritizing the budget. We could be rebuilding aged water infrastructure, or building the Central Subway here in SF, but instead the priority goes to support illegal immigrants, equity initiatives, and 'helping the homeless' without fixing the actual problem. It's not taxes that is the issue, it's the way that Biden and Newsom want to spend them.
I've been waiting to hear what the republican plan is to address inflation. The likely possibility that they will blow up the economy in order to regain the White House in 2024 is real and voters need to realize this could happen. Rick Scott, Ron Johnson and Kevin McCarthy are eyeing making cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. I've heard them say it on camera and this is one instance in which I believe what they are saying.
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@Mary The 3 guys you mentioned are 3 out of about 25 republicans that are truly dangerous for this country. In order of danger I'll add Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, Mark Meadows, Mike Lee, Marjorie Green, Boepert, Stefanik, Matt Gaetz, Bill Cassidy, LA. Senator John Kennedy, DeSantis, McConnell, etc.
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"Proposed tax and spending cuts by the G.O.P., which is making a push to take back Congress, are unlikely to bring down rapidly rising prices any time soon."
So . . . what else is new? This hasn't worked for over 40 years, and the GOP knows it.
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It has been reported that Inflation is caused by huge corporate profits from their price hikes as well as govenment spending but mostly do to corporations taking advantage of consumers. Why aren't the democrats explaining this if this is so? On the other hand we should vote for the democrats on the issue that republican leaders don't care about women's rights and everyone's right to self determination/freedom. Money comes and goes but once our freedom and laws are ignored all is lost. Women's right, voting rights, rule of law, the environment, racial equality and religious freedom.
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No one mentions the fact that Republicans championed Trump’s massive tax cuts to the rich, which have yet to ‘trickle down, folks.’ It ended the Truss leadership in the UK; it should have done the same to the former guy.
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@H. Clark There have been many,many critiques Both theoretical and empirical) of the Laffer curve for over 50 years (a theory 'developed' on a cocktail napkin, anyone?) Theoretical inadequacies aside, how can ANYONE argue that supply-side policies simply a) don't work and b) serve to increase inequalities in a nation?? One can only conclude that, as I have for many years, they are simply the matter of political expediency, one, which far too often, works
President Obama negiotated a long term reduction with Speaker Boehner in 2011. Those negiotations collapsed because Speaker Boehner couldn't keep his own caucus in line to vote for it. The Liberty caucus refused to budge.
The result was a sequestor on military spending which the Republicans broke the day they retook the Presidency and Congress.
I suspect if the Republicans could actually agree on something that President Biden would be willing to work with them. They won't come up with any thing of substance because they are addicted to federal money that they can take from Blue State taxpayers and redistribute to Red State constituents to buy votes.
The Democrats are the Tax and Spend party. The Republicans are the Spend party.
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@HLW no, the Republicans are the let’s privatize EVERYTHING party. They only want to spend to bankrupt the federal government so that the individual states can assume power under mostly private guidance. In other words feudalism, with a strong Christian theological orientation. Or in other words medieval feudal Europe with smart phones and SUVs.
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Nothing wrong with tax and spend but everything wrong with tax the poor give to the rich and lie, lie, lie to the credulous.
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“It is unlikely that any of the policies proposed by Republicans would meaningfully reduce inflation in 2023, when rapidly rising prices will still be a major problem for the economy and for consumers,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
They ignore their own experts.
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Trickle down economics! It hasn't worked anytime in the past 45 years but THIS time for sure!
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Which makes sense that there’s a good chance they’ll win big next month - because politics is all about big reactions, outrage, and grievance, not about actually trying to solve problems.
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Democrats are better for the economy!
Higher GDP growth, higher median income growth, greater job growth, higher stock market, lower unemployment.
Where Democrats fail is in proving their case. They are their own worse enemy…
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@Richard Gooding It literally makes no sense to me. They've got all the data and prof, but lose our to lies and baseless conspiracy. What's up with their strategist?
Inflation is being cause by company price gouging in order to punish Democrats and get the GOP back into power. Prices do not exist in a vacuum outside of the politics. We are seeing this with Saudi Arabia, too. They are cutting back on oil production in order to get Trump and the Republicans back in power - it will probably work too. Biden is drilling far more than Trump ever was, but it doesn't matter because the Saudis and Russia colluded to pull oil out of the world market to punish our support for Ukraine and our fractioning relationship with Riyadh.
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@Kevin Inflation is being driven by fiscal as well as monetary policy. The massive spending bills that gave out all those stimmy checks, stimulated demand by design. Most of that money went to random folks that had not actually even lost work or income. Retirees, young people living on their mom's couches bought jet skis and bitcoin and new couches.
Higher demand shifts supply:demand equilibriums, resulting in higher prices (exacerbated by supply chain constraints).
Policies that inhibit new supply of oil and natural gas exacerbated shortages and directly drove up prices. We are all paying for that with higher gasoline prices, higher electricity prices, and higher food prices.
Fertilizer costs and prices are directly tied to natural gas, fyi. The coming food scarcity is being driven by extremely high input costs including fertilizer, tractor parts, diesel fuel, transportation costs. Scary.
And, yes the unintended consequences of green rules contributed greatly to our current high inflation pain. An awful tax on the poor. Tragic.
GOP does not need to have any plan to help the inflation, they could simply pin it on Biden by saying it was already bad before I got here.
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Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Supply Side Snake Oil, version 5.0, is the Republican economic solution.
This is what a political party completely bankrupt of ideas brings to the table: another retread of failed nihilism economics.
Because it worked so well for Liz Truss.
And because the self-described "king of debt" and bankrupter of casinos, Donald Trump, is their messiah.
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It always appears that Americans live in a seperate reality bubble removed from the rest of the world. Politicians of both parties seem to ignore the fact that the entire industrialized world is experiencing inflation, and more often worse than ours. The US media also is in on the act. Except for the recent UK news of a new PM, it is rarely mentioned outside of the NYT and Wapo universe.
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@Philip ....Not to mention that the U.S. unemployment rate is at a record low and that the dollar has been steadily gaining strength against other currencies. The bottom line is that the U.S. economy is in better shape in dealing with the global inflation than most other countries.
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Thank you for FINALLY writing this article. Republicans have no plan to lower gas prices or improve the economy, they’re simply the party of grievance and more news outlets need to call this out.
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Based on the truth that inflation was 5 times lower than it has been since J20, 2021, can only mean that Republicans had kept inflation low despite the pandemic. The inflation is currently at a 40 year high under the Democrats and expectations that it will be Republicans who now have to come up with a plan to clean up the mess that Democrats have created is absurd. Unless Republicans are able to reverse some of the non essential spending decisions of the Democrats and place a hold on tall future spending, I would also not expect Republicans to successfully deal with inflation.
Why should Republicans be responsible for cleaning up the mess and crises that Democrats created. The only bipartisan spending since J20, 2021 above and beyond required to keep the US government functional was infrastructure spending bill. The rest of the trillions in spending by the Democrat majority was the root cause of hyper inflation and most economists including Democrats like Larry Summers agree with that inference.
Majority of the current problems besides inflation were a result of the excessive eccentric executive orders (EOs). NY Times pointed that out in an editorial soon after Biden signed excessive EOs after J20, 2021 without any thought or debate in congress. US Southern Border became insecure after Biden's EO and the result was millions of undocumented illegal migrants crossed the border since J20, 2021. US has become energy dependent after Biden's attacks on domestic energy producers
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@Girish Kotwal No attack on energy production. There was an economic calamity in the US energy markets, but it was before 2020. Prices fell below break even for frackers, and too many investors lost their shirts. Since then, investors want high profit margins, not cheap gas. They are very happy with the current situation, and really aren't interested in drilling more just so their profit margins can go down.
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@Girish Kotwal --Explain "energy dependent" when we've never produced more crude oil than we've consumed on an average daily basis.
@Girish Kotwal Republicans ARE responsible for doling out trillions of dollars to Billionaires and large corporations. That's why THEY should be proposing some real plans to fix the mess THEY created. What the Dems did was to stabilize the economy, have children be fed, the renters stay home till they get their job back from Trump recession.
Having said that, the GOP's Truss plan will sink the economy even further. I'm shuddering at that impending disaster.
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I get it. We are all supposed to blame Joe Biden and Democrats for the inflation in the United States... but how todes this blame work?
Are we allowed to ask questions?
Did Joe cause COVID? (no)
Did Joe damage the supply chain due to COVID? (no)
Did Joe raise the prices of oil? (no)
Did Joe invade the Ukraine? (no)
What exactly did Biden do to cause inflation? (nothing)
Is Joe Biden also resonsible for all of the inflation in every other country in the world? (no)
Did Joe Biden do something to help with inflation? (yes)
Did Republicans do anything to help with inflation? (no)
Ok. So right about now, it's very hard not to be cynical.
We've all read, over and over, how Joe Biden is to blame, but no one bothered to ask or answer the question, "How is he to blame?"And that's because he's not to blame.
There's literally no way to blame Joe Biden for the world's inflation. And there's litterally no way Republican will fix it. In fact, odds are great that Republicans will make it worse.
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@John Smallberries Spare me the Thomas Sowell nonsense. He isn't some economic guru. He doesn't know what the economy will do tomorrow any more than you do.
This mess isn't sole problem with stimulus payments, most of which are long out the door. And the new spending for infrastructure and energy are ten year endeavors. It wasn't shoveled out the door in 2022.
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@John Smallberries ...So how come inflation is higher in the EU than the U.S.? How come the unemployment rate in the U.S. is at a record low? How come the dollar has been steadily gaining strength against other currencies. Bake those facts into the cake and what you are arguing isn't logical.
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@John Smallberries Biden's 1.5 trillion stimulus was small potatoes compared to Trump's 6+ trillion dollar giveaway. The difference of course is where the money went. Trump's largely went to big business, with few strings attached. Most of Biden's went to working families, providing real assistance (child care credits) but was quickly ended after one year. Why? The GOP wasn't about to let Democrats have credit for helping working families. They couldn't care less about the debt, or they wouldn't have taken out multi-trillon dollar loans to cover tax cuts.
The other TRILLIONS you refer to are investments in infrastructure and domestic manufacturing, and helping the conversion to green energy. Please explain how this is wasteful spending, compared to tax cuts that only seemed to dangerously inflate real estate and stock prices.
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So Republicans have taken up the Trussian mantle? Good luck with that.
Trump’s 2017 deficit-financed tax cut was billed as a pathway to boosting business investment (whether here or abroad was not specified). It was a giant bust in that regard.
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@trblmkr
That 'deficit-financed tax cut' was only (ONLY???) supposed to be $1.5 TRILLION, but, by the time the lawyers and lobbyists got through with it it turned out to be $5.5 TRILLION.
How do you tell the men from the boys?
No 'boy' will ever complain about that tax cut.
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@trblmkr Didn't they pay *any* attention to what's been going on in the U.K.? The former Empire, now in a race to the bottom?
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@trblmkr Another actor turned president praised the trickle down theory also.
And that never reaped the rewards the actor had promised.
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Higher interest rates and a slowing of wage increases are what will tame inflation. All the rest is background noise, no matter which party is peddling it.
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@BayArea101
Supply disruptions and oil prices are the drivers of price increases. Still feeling the effects of the pandemic and the ongoing Russian aggression. Since fertilizer is dependent on oil, food prices naturally are affected as well.
Interest rate increases and wage increases have no effect on either of the above.
In fact, interest rate hikes will make investments in conventional or renewable energy more prohibitive.
How does that help?
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@John Harper Now tell me how all the increases in food prices are going to farmers. Hint: it isn't. Sure, they may get some benefit, but most of the increases are absorbed by the middle men. And those middle men enjoy consolidated markets where they really don't have to compete. They are oligopolies.
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@Andy Maker You hit the nail on the head. As for example, the meat market is held by four major companies. They are the ones who are fleecing the Americans. President Biden mentioned it once, but no one, not even the media, followed up on it.
Most Americans, especially the middle class, are too busy earning bread for their family and do not have the time to drill down to the cause of inflation. Unless the media brings it to light and shame them some more, these companies will NOT change their tactics.
The Republicans’ 5-Step plans is:
1 Cut taxes to increase the government’s debt
2 Sell bonds to the very wealthy to cover expenses
3 Gut and/or privatize public services (eg health, ed, roads)
4 Use middle class tax money to pay wealthy bond holders
5 Force middle class to pay profiteers in order to receive basic services that were previously public services
The results will be to accelerate the decline of the middle class, to limit economic mobility for generations and to continue to concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands.
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@AnneW Agreed. I am mindful of what happened in the U.K. Liz Truss tried to establish similar economic policies, a.k.a. the Reaganesque trickle down theory: The free market should be left alone, with low taxes, to bring prosperity and economic health to the country. Her economic plans were rejected and she was replaced as PM.
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@BChad Yes, we might start to see the UK as more democratic than the US. There isn't really much accountability, is there?
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@AnneW has a brain. Thank you Anne.
Tax cuts and gutting IRS funding that exists to look for tax cheats?
Who is that really going to help?
Not the little guy, that’s for sure.
The GOP loves to cut taxes and then leave it to the Democrats to fix the problems they ignored when in control of the government.
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@The End Is Where We Start From And then blame the Democrats for it.
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@The End Is Where We Start From
Such simple concepts to explain, yet find one Democrat who's actually come out and made this case, Biden in particular. The fecklessness of the Democrats in countering billionaire-friendly GOP economic "theory" has been going on for decades. Maybe it's because the Dems are no less bought that we have to rely on Bernie Sanders and only Bernie Sanders to point out the absurdity and callousness of these policies.
Tax cuts are the GOP plan for inflation?!? Why am I not surprised…
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@Ughhhhhhhh
I agree with your thoughts about republicans cutting taxes as their plan to fight inflation...ughhhhh.
Now let's look at the democrats. Biden continues to release oil from the strategic reserves to lower the price of gas and encourage MORE driving. Many democrats have pushed for a temporary reduction or even elimination of the federal gas tax.
Biden has also decided to pump an extra half a trillion dollars into an overheated economy with his idiotic and likely unconstitutional plan to allow student debtors to have up to $20,000 written off their loans.
Yeah, I will go the 'whataboutism' route. Because BOTH sides are next to worthless and care only about getting votes and money.
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Only one side is trying to install a dictator in the White House.
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@Ughhhhhhhh I know. For my entire life, the GOP has turned to tax and spending cuts to solve any problem.
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Republican spending cuts plus Fed interest rate hikes will lead us into severe recession, while Republican tax cuts will stoke inflation even more than it already has been. The result will be stagflation, with the government unable to do anything that doesn't make things worse. And Republicans won't be upset about stagflation as long as they figure they can use it as a cuddle against President Biden come 2024. Campaigning is their whole reason for being, after all.
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@Mark L.
Somehow, I doubt that republicans will want to "cuddle" with democrats in 2024. I' betting you meant cudgel. I am also praying that Biden does not run in 2024. Same for Trump.
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@Mark L.
the good news (for them) is that wealth inequality will widen, prices will continue to increase, and less people will be able to afford things like health care or food or shelter. Then, since the wealthy have hoarded enough to weather the storm, they can buy up all the assets (human and otherwise) at a super cheap rate.
If only the plebes would bootstrap themselves, then the GOP can stop giving out lessons on "tough love".
Inflation is a world-wide phenomenon, not just an American one, and it's worse in most countries than it is in the United States.
Republicans are responsible for every recession the past seventy five years, and the periods of greatest economic growth in the United States have been under Democratic administrations. Poverty and unemployment are greater under Republicans too. Peculiar, isn't it.
The explanation is actually simple: Republicans see the economy as something that needs to work only for the wealthy, the only people who count. So if taxes are lowered and economic conditions are improved for the super-wealthy, Republicans consider their job well done.
Inflation? To a Republican, that's not a problem, it's an opportunity for a political issue. After the election, Republicans plan to increase taxes on the poor, and once again decrease taxes on the super-wealthy and the multi-billion-dollar corporations. They've said so.
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@Jonathan Today's inflation is mostly driven by commodity prices, but the Fed is hell bent on blaming workers for wanting raises and plans on punishing them with an artificial recession.
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@Jonathan
Yes, inflation is GLOBAL, and you make a good case for why Democrats are better for the economy... so why is it that Democrats can't effectively get this message across to more Americans? It always goes back to messaging. The Democrats are awful at it. Sometimes I think the Democratic National Committee simply needs to hire a top notch public relations team to advise Congressional Democrats on how to reach Americans.
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Jonathan yes but why do so many working class people still believe them?
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I’ve asked, for instance @GOPLeader about this. No answers, not even a form letter in return. On the other side, I may not agree with all that I hear, but I’ve been deluged.
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@db2
I'm sure you know the reason @GOPLeader won't answer:
The GOP knows that making the 2017 tax cuts permanent will exacerbate inflation and that tax cuts for the rich are unpopular.
The GOP also knows that cutting Social Security and Medicare will be politically disastrous unless they can extort Biden to support those cuts though holding the debt ceiling hostage.
Nonetheless they plan to do both if they regain control of Congress.
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As with many issues the GOP uses as campaign material, there is no substance behind their ‘plan’. I tend to blame both Democrats and Republicans, the Fed, and the war in Ukraine for the state and vector of the economy.
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@CMP. BIDEN WILL NEVER CUT SS OR MEDICARE. Default is a two edged sword. How will the banks respond to Republican default?
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