Instead of Playing the Blame Game, the Bidens Should Follow This Plan
They are begging forgiveness for being so badly wrong in missing the inflation story, and then calling inflation ‘temporary.’ You know what? They’re not really sorry.
Permit me one more pass at President Biden’s alleged plan for fighting inflation. As my pal Kevin Hassett said last night, it’s not exactly the Marshall Plan. Three quick points in this non-plan.
First, blame everything on the Federal Reserve. “It’s their problem, not mine,” Mr. Biden inferred. I’m thinking that if the Fed does what it needs to do in tightening the money supply and raising interest rates above inflation, then Mr. Biden will blame the resulting election-year recession on the Fed. He’s setting up Chairman Jay Powell for a big fall.
A second key point in Mr. Biden’s non-plan: Take another stab at “Build Back Better.” He just wants to spend more money on the “Green New Deal” and various subsidies, including Obamacare and of course federal control of drug prices.
The third point is reducing the federal budget deficit by confiscatory wealth taxes on the successful, as well as higher taxes for American companies at home and overseas. If this sounds a lot like the package where we saved America and killed the bill, you’d be right. This has nothing to do with inflation. Nothing.
Yet Mr. Biden and his senior staff are now running around telling everybody that they feel their pain on inflation, and are begging forgiveness for being so badly wrong in missing the inflation story, and then calling inflation “temporary.” You know what? They’re not really sorry.
Here’s the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, begging for forgiveness: “Look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take. As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I at the time didn’t fully understand.”
It sounds more like a hostage video than a truly well-meaning apology. With all due respect, what you just heard was a non-apology apology. Because, behind all those tears, there was an “it wasn’t our fault” moment.
In other words, it wasn’t the inflationary $2 trillion stimmy package, or all the borrowing that was financed by Fed money creation, or that Mr. Biden’s radical war against fossil fuels put a lid on the production of oil, gas, and pipelines. Nope, none of that. Instead, it was Vladimir Putin and bottlenecks.
“Not our fault.” This blame game, which begins with Biden and continues through his treasury secretary and other senior staff, is a key reason why the so-called anti-inflation plan has no credibility.
If you don’t understand the inflation problem, and you don’t own the problem, then you’re never going to solve the problem. Hat tip to my friend Byron York for reminding us of President Ford’s “whip inflation now” buttons. The Biden plan is just as silly, if not more so.
I’ve got a better idea, a better plan.
First, make the Trump corporate tax cuts permanent, then slash individual tax rates in order to promote supply-side growth.
Second, deregulate all business, industry, and energy.
Third, freeze domestic spending.
Fourth, end ultra-cheap interest rates and pull excess cash out of the economy in order to protect and guarantee the value of King Dollar.
Bundle all this into a pro-growth balanced budget package and the U.S. economy will take off like a rocket while inflation plunges. It’s happened before. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The cavalry’s coming.
From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.