Inflation took down former President Jimmy Carter in 1980.
It may cost the Democrats the House of Representatives and/or the Senate in November 2022.
That is a rather bold assertion. There are a number of contenders for “the issue” that cost Democrats the Congress: The $2 trillion dollar spending spree; the botched withdrawal from Kabul, Afghanistan; a crime wave following the “Defund the Police” scream-fest; gasoline and energy prices rising faster than inflation in the wake of pipelines shut down and exploration for oil limited on federal land; and a sense of weakness that encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in 2022 rather than the past four years.
Biden’s low approval rating of 41% is largely driven by the 70% of Americans saying they disapprove of his handling of inflation. The year before Biden took office inflation was 1.4%. In the first Biden year it was up 7.5% and now running at an annual rate of 8.5%. (RELATED: Inflation Under Biden Reaches Staggering New Heights)
The money supply has even increased 30%. The $2 trillion in “welfare payments” relabeled “COVID” created more money chasing fewer goods. Biden didn’t help matters by claiming inflation was “temporary” and that it was caused by the Russian dictator Putin invading Ukraine months after inflation was unleashed. And Biden wants to solve inflation by increasing taxes on Americans by $2.5 trillion, with 11 taxes targeting oil and gasoline. (RELATED: Democrats’ Narrative Blaming Putin For Surging Gas Prices Appears To Be Working: POLL)
Higher taxes on gasoline will drive the price at the pump higher not lower.
As Jimmy Carter discovered, raging inflation is not easy to control quickly. It can take two years to rein in inflation as high as Biden’s. And if you do not have some counter pressure — like former President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts — contraction of the money supply will drive up unemployment and create a recession.
Republicans have suggested that one can limit the damage of inflation by indexing the capital gains tax to inflation — so that when your home or land or life savings is taxed the “capital gain” does not include inflation.
On average when people sell stocks they have owned for quite a while 40% of what is taxed is actually inflation, not real gain. Several states are looking to index their state income tax brackets to inflation — so that inflation does not push taxpayers into higher tax brackets.
Inflation, unlike Kabul and Ukraine, is in your face every single day. When you shop for groceries, fill up your tank with gasoline or buy clothes for the kids. A daily reminder of the costs of Biden’s tax and spend, low growth, anti-energy policies.
This is not free. It hits middle class taxpayers very, very hard. It is a war on the middle class and savings.
Biden ran for president promising he would never raise any form of taxes on any Americans earning less than $400,000. (RELATED: NORQUIST: Biden’s Budget — Taxes, Taxes And More Taxes)
Inflation is a deadly tax that hits every American. Many American consumers and taxpayers view inflation’s reduction in the value of their life savings to be a steep and vicious tax. They were promised this would not happen.
Jimmy Carter lost when Ronald Reagan won 44 states with 489 electoral college votes. Carter only won six states with 49 electoral votes. Republicans in 1980 gained 35 House seats and 12 Senate seats, giving them control of that chamber for the first time since 1955.
How is Biden planning to face down inflation? In his recently released Economic Report of the President, he didn’t even mention the word inflation in his four-page summary letter — the only part of the report most Americans or reporters will read.
Jimmy Carter at least put up a fight with the swimming rabbit.
Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
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