“Bidenflation” existed before he staggered into office on January 20, 2021. It was catalyzed when nearly every Republican supported the worst piece of legislation in American history on March 25, 2020, which set off a cascade of several other pieces of legislation underwriting, incentivizing, and consummating COVID lockdowns. The chief cheerleader of the bill at the time was none other than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the man whom Republicans are pining to see become floor leader once again next year to solve the inflation crisis. But in order to solve it, don’t we need to first acknowledge the cause and who was responsible?
Last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell tossed out the same tired bromide about Biden causing inflation with his $1.9 trillion reckless spending “on party line” last year.
What he forgets to tell you is that the bulk of the unfathomable levels of spending came from the worst legislation in American history: the $2.2 trillion COVID lockdown/Big Pharma bill that he ardently pushed for in March 2020, which at the time, represented half of the entire federal budget! That bill led to a cascading effect of unconscionable spendingand tyranny that, between Congress and the Federal Reserve, unleashed more than $10 trillion on the economy.One clear reason we're suffering from 40-year high inflation: The $1.9 trillion reckless spending this all-Democratic government passed on a party-line basis last year.
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) July 14, 2022
Now, after spending us into inflation, they want to tax us into a recession. pic.twitter.com/B2oZgpOkrE
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At the time, McConnell praised it as “a wartime level of investment into our nation.” “The men and women of the greatest country on Earth are going to defeat this coronavirus and reclaim our future," said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell when announcing the deal that morning. "The Senate's going to make sure that they have the ammunition they need to do it."
Except, it wasn’t a wartime investment in production, it was an investment in lockdown, paying people not to work, imposing tyranny, and inducing a vicious cycle of Big Pharma failure that perpetuated both the pandemic and the economic misery. Milton Friedman famously described inflation as the result of "too much money chasing too few goods.” Never was there a time in history when Congress voted to spend so much money to simultaneously shut down production and make goods scarce while lining the pockets of individuals and corporations with endless cash. As the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank concededin March when groping in the dark for the culprit of the history inflation, “In seeking an explanation, we turn to the combination of direct fiscal support introduced to counteract the economic devastation caused by the pandemic."
Because of the terrible COVID policies Republicans still refuse to acknowledge, the federal reserve went on such a bond buying spree that it literally increased the money supply by 40% and did this all while the same policies were shrinking output.
Read the rest here.
from McConnell’s ‘Wartime’ COVID Investments Come Home to Roost
