By Emma Reilly
Opinion Editor
This month’s skyrocketing gas prices are straining Americans’ wallets — and patience.
According to CNN Business, “inflation has soared to a nearly four-decade high.” As such, inflation is affecting more than just the cost of fuel. The prices of food, commodities, and manufactured goods in the U.S. and abroad are going up at a historic rate, according to NPR.
In times of economic difficulty, some people search for someone to blame.
Right now, President Joe Biden is taking the fall for the rapid rise of inflation. Whether it’s in the form of a civilian plastering an “I Did That” sticker on a gas pump, or a major corporation pinning the blame for increased prices on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief funds), the president’s name is at the forefront of people’s complaints.
But, while “it’s true that government spending boosts inflation…economists have pushed back on the idea that Biden’s ambitious social safety net expansion would inflame price surges,” according to CNN.
Furthermore, if COVID-19 stimulus money was to blame for high inflation, the Biden administration would not be the sole culprit. President Trump, in 2020, also authorized the distribution of COVID-19 relief funds.
President Biden did not cause inflation to spike, nor can he reverse that spike now that it is occurring.
According to NPR, “the president’s powers are limited in lowering the price of oil…on tackling inflation more broadly, the president’s powers are also limited.”
Despite his limited influence, Biden has undertaken two mitigation strategies. According to NPR, the president requested that the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries increase their production of oil and withdrew 50 million barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Biden is no more to blame for inflation than broader entities like corporate America or the COVID-19 pandemic. There are certainly steps he can take to mitigate it — which he has undergone — but he cannot totally prevent it.
Those still unconvinced that the president is not to blame for the nation’s increasing inflation rate need only turn their gaze toward the international community.
According to NPR, “the European Union was seeing a record-high inflation rate of 5% in December, the highest in its twenty-year history. Canada is seeing the highest rate of inflation in two decades. Ditto South Korea. Turkey. The United Kingdom.”
The U.S. is not alone in its situation. Inflation is a global challenge that many nations are facing to an extent never before seen.
What it all comes down to is complexity. Inflation is a difficult concept to understand, no matter how well economists and journalists try to explain it — and it feels good to point fingers after you’ve spent $70 at the pump.
Nevertheless, there’s enough finger-pointing in politics to begin with. So, as Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin said, while the fact that Biden is not the mastermind behind high inflation “may not be satisfying for the media or politicians, who like to blame someone for society’s problems…It is reality.”
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Featured Photo Caption: High inflation rates in recent weeks led some people to criticize President Joe Biden.