Colorado Dems say inflation not a threat, but prices just hit 30-year high

Nov 12, 2021

Remember when Democrats said inflation was just transitory?

Or better yet, when the White House suggested it was only impacting luxury items like Peloton treadmills?

Well, the plot certainly thickened this week as Americans discovered it wasn’t a mirage: price increases have actually hit a 30-year high.

The Labor Department on Wednesday reported that prices jumped 0.9% in October. That’s 6.2% from a year ago which comes out to the fastest rate since 1990.

For a phenomenon that was supposed to be temporary, the latest evidence shows we may be stuck with rising prices for a while.

From D.C. to Colorado, more than a few Democrats are eating their words.

Take this tweet from our good friend state Rep. Steven Woodrow.

Woodrow really gets off on, among other things, really doing Republicans’ job for them.

In addition to being classist and out of touch, Woodrow’s musings from last June are also a giant self-own.

The idea voters shouldn’t worry about economy-wide inflation because Democrats spent the previous 30 years driving up the cost of housing and higher education isn’t exactly reassuring for the middle class.

Woodrow’s tweet could just as easily read:

“Worried about the cost of feeding your kids or getting to work? Please. Have you seen what our policies have done to the price of housing or higher education over the last 30 years? If you can handle that, why not a little pain at the pump?”

The true champion of freezing cold inflation takes, however, goes to state House Democrat Communications Director Jarrett Freedman.

Is it really surprising Democrats were caught this flat-footed on inflation?

Anyone who didn’t believe inflation was a serious threat last March after trillions in record pandemic stimulus would have to be either remarkably ignorant of basic supply & demand economics, or living under the rock.

But Biden still went on to sign another $1.8 trillion in stimulus and extended unemployment checks in April.

The economy is now suffering from massive price increases driven in part by labor shortages that can be attributed to the extended unemployment checks from Biden’s $1.8 trillion March stimulus.

If Democrats dispute that obvious causal series of events, they should ask anyone who operates a a restaurant or small business that employs hourly workers.

Sure labor shortages do mean higher wages for some workers, but even those earnings are getting wiped out by the pace of inflation.

…real average hourly earnings when accounting for inflation, actually decreased 0.5% for the month. So an apparent solid paycheck increase actually turned into a decrease, and another setback for workers still struggling to shake off the effects of the Covid pandemic.

 

“For now, inflation is going to continue to run above very solid wage growth,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist for the Americas at Natixis and former chief economist for the National Economic Council during the Trump administration. “This is why when you look at consumer confidence, it’s really taking a beating. Households do not like the inflation story, and rightly so.”

It shouldn’t be that hard for Democrats to understand that increasing the money supply and government transfers will, over time, inevitably lead to inflation.

Aside from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, it doesn’t appear there is a single Democrat in Washington these days who gets that.

The problem for Democrats is they don’t actually have any actual ideas to combat rising prices.

We all saw how that played out for them in Virginia, and it won’t be any prettier for liberals in Colorado in 2022.

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