REUTERS
Sorry, Mr. President: The facts keep intruding on your “Bidenomics” victory tour.
The morning of President Joe Biden’s latest speech in that effort came news that the Producer Price Index jumped .07% in August over July — almost double the consensus expectation of .04% and the biggest jump in 14 months.
This guarantees more consumer inflation in coming months, as producers pass along the hike in what they’re paying.
So the inflation conflagration that the White House and its media allies have been insisting is sputtering out still has ample room to burn on.
Plus, the PPI jump follows Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index shock — up 3.7% year on year, and a strong reminder that the pain of Bidenomics still persists: Indeed, it means yet another month of this presidency when real wages have fallen, for an ugly record of two “wins” and 21 “losses.”
Also grim: Both the PPI and CPI jumps were driven by fast-rising energy costs.
Those skyrocketed some 10.5% for “final demand” energy, and an eyewatering 20% for gasoline.
And the blame for that falls on plainly on Biden’s war on domestic energy: Higher prices for carbon-fueled power (which is more than 80% of all power) are the plan; they’re supposed to send us all fleeing to wind and solar power (that mostly don’t exist yet).
Blame, too, the drunken-sailor spending that characterizes Biden’s fiscal policy: Thanks to his laughably misnamed Inflation Reduction Act and other moves, the federal deficit will double this year, to $2 trillion (the highest ever figure outside of COVID years).
Biden’s not letting up on his spree, and may soon force a government shutdown if Congress tries to cut current spending.
With 17.4% cumulative inflation since Biden took office, inflation-adjusted mean household income in 2022 plunged 2.3% from 2021, dropping $4,000 below the 2019 level.
Yet the president went off to Maryland on Thursday afternoon to again tout his imaginary success: “For the first time in a long time, we’ve climbed out of our great economic crisis — it’s beginning to work for working people.”
No, it’s not: Again, average real wages dropped last month; he’s 2-21 on that core measure of success.
Not to mention the danger of a coming autoworkers strike, surely invited by Biden’s pro-union policies.
All the president has to offer in defense of Bidenomics is a pack of shameless lies.
And the public sees the reality he denies: One recent Quinnipiac poll clocked a 60% disapproval of Biden on the economy.
More and more, it looks like nothing short of losing the White House will get Democrats to quit telling Americans to disbelieve their own lying eyes.
