Some GOP presidential hopefuls say that the blame for crippling inflation stretches further back than “Bidenomics” to former President Donald Trump.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says a straight line can be drawn from the Trump team’s coronavirus decision-making to subsequent supply chain problems, a crazy job market and 40-year high inflation numbers.
“The first three years of the Trump administration, the economy was better than it has been, but that last year with COVID I think was mishandled dramatically,” Mr. DeSantis said in a recent CNN Town Hall, where he labeled Mr. Trump’s support for the economic shutdown and massive stimulus “a huge mistake.”
“That set the foundation for the inflation that we see,” Mr. DeSantis said.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley also sees Mr. Trump‘s fingerprints on inflation, blaming the stimulus spending for overheating the economy and making inflation worse than it needed to be.
“Everybody is paying a price for the fact our past presidents put us in a hole,” she said.
Then there is former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who says the cause of inflation is “Joe Biden and his spending and Donald Trump and his spending during his time in the White House.”
The San Francisco Federal Reserve has estimated that fiscal moves made in the name of lessening the fallout from the pandemic may have raised inflation by about 3 percentage points by the end of 2021. Inflation hit a high of 9.1% in June 2022, and is now hovering slightly above 3%.
The Federal Reserve’s target rate for inflation is 2%.
Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who specializes in economic policy, said the nation was always going to face some level of inflation coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, but government actions did make it worse.
He laid most of the blame on President Biden and the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus law signed in early 2021. When Mr. Trump left office in January 2021, the inflation rate was 1.4%.
“I think the inflation comes from the trillion-dollar policies that are circulating after the economy has already reopened, and so it’s only whatever spending was left in the system [from Trump policies], after people started going back to work in the second quarter of 2021 that you would really look at,” Mr. Riedl said.
But he said that doesn’t excuse the $2.3 trillion in relief Mr. Trump signed into law in 2020, or the tariffs Mr. Trump slapped on trade.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The Republican National Committee released a video ad on Tuesday placing the blame for inflation solely on Mr. Biden.
“This holiday season, Bidenomics has made everything from Christmas trees to gifts unaffordable for middle-class families,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “While Americans struggle to stay afloat, we’re reminding them who the real Grinch is this Christmas: Joe Biden.”
Biden is the real Grinch this Christmas:
PNC Bank’s annual Christmas Price Index, which measures the cost of the dozen gifts outlined in the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” just hit an all-time high – jumping another 2.7 percent after a 10.5 percent hike last year.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump says he created the “greatest economy” in the history of the nation. He also pins inflation on Mr. Biden, who in turn says he inherited the mess from Mr. Trump.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the Trump and Biden policies “had little to nothing to do with it.”
“This is evident from the high inflation across the globe, and that inflation is now quickly receding with sub-4% unemployment as the economic fallout from those two massive supply shocks is increasingly in the rearview mirror,” Mr. Zandi said. “The uncomfortably high inflation experienced in 2021-2022 was largely due to the impact of the pandemic on global supply chains and the job market, and the impact of the Russian war in Ukraine on energy, food and other commodity prices.”
Whatever the case, Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley are warning voters in the GOP nomination race that Mr. Trump’s record on the economy and inflation is not as stellar as he makes it out to be.
A Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll released this month, however, found that 68% of likely caucus-goers say Mr. Trump would “do the best job with the economy.”
Mr. Riedl said inflation is a ripe political subject because it is so complicated for voters to understand.
“Whether it is the other party’s politicians or cooperate greed, it is easy to pin [inflation] on whoever your enemy already is,” Mr. Reidl said. “There is disagreement among economists, which gives just enough leeway for people to come up with any theory they wish that is convenient for them.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.