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Joe Biden has finally addressed our inflation problem.
“Today, I’m announcing a bold new plan to dramatically reduce government spending, rollback unnecessary and burdensome regulations, and unleash American innovation and ingenuity to fuel economic growth,” he said.
Just kidding.
No, Joe Biden disturbed our Super Bowl Sunday to claim the great national scandal driving our economic stagnation was potato chip makers putting too few chips in the chip bag.
Maybe that’s because the next day the Labor Department was set to announce January’s inflation was higher than expected. Nothing to see here. Back to the game.
Biden is talking about “shrinkflation,” which isn’t new. When everything costs more, it costs more to make things. To avoid firing employees or shuttering doors, businesses have a choice: raise the price for the same or charge the same for less. They can only raise prices so much before people stop buying, so then they opt for the latter.
Point is, shrinkflation isn’t the problem. It’s a byproduct of high inflation, which was the predictable result of a massive government spending overreaction to the pandemic, according to economists.
While Biden is busy counting chips, America is looking at everything else on their grocery list. Our friends at the Heritage Foundation crunched the latest consumer data. Poultry, dairy, lunchmeat, juice, baby food and formula prices have all jumped more than 20 percent since Biden took office. Eggs are up over 35 percent.
It’s a feature of our democracy that presidents must at least pretend to care about our real concerns every four years, which is why Biden is suddenly focused on shrinking snacks. Or maybe the real shrinkage he fears is his poll numbers.