As part of a $7.3 trillion budget request released by the White House on Mar. 11, President Joe Biden is proposing a minimum 25 percent tax on billionaires. The resulting billions in new taxes would be used to continue what Republicans call his administration’s inflation-producing reckless spending (Image courtesy of the White House via Facebook).
WASHINGTON. D.C. – During his State of the Union address on Mar. 7, President Joe Biden claimed that inflation “keeps coming down.”
Republicans in Congress dispute that claim – and they’re not the only ones.
Inflation is on the rise and went up again in February, according to Biden’s own U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In a report released on Mar. 12, BLS analysts said that all the items on the Consumer Price Index increased by 3.2 percent before seasonal adjustment over the past 12 months.
“”The index for shelter rose in February, as did the index for gasoline,” according to the BLS report. “These two indexes contributed over 60 percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items.”
In plain English, those index increases — measures that track inflationary changes in the prices of consumer goods and services over time — rose by 0.4 percent in February after rising by 3.2 percent from a year ago.
Republican National Committee spokesmen accuse Biden of playing “word games,” by comparing to the current rate of inflation to his own record high of 9 percent in June of 2022.
But inflation compared to the Trump years (2017, 2018 and 2019) is significantly higher, with the cumulative inflation total hitting 18 percent since 2021, when Biden took office.
“Inflation accelerated again last month,” said Alfredo Ortiz, the president and CEO of the Jobs Creation Network.
“That destroys the narrative that inflation is under control,” he added. “Inflation remains elevated due to Democrats’ continued reckless spending,”
“President Biden’s budget released Monday shows Democrats have no intention of trying to control spending that’s needed to reduce price acceleration.”
Biden issued a $7.3 trillion budget request on Mar. 11, which the White House predicts would lower the cost of health care and housing, increase funding for child care and college aid.
The Biden administration plans to fund those increases and others with new and increased taxes, including a 25 percent minimum tax on billionaires.
While House Republicans insist that the administration must control spending, the Biden budget proposal includes a $901 million budget for the U.S. Capitol Police, which guards Congress, up from $542 million in 2023; a 16 percent increase for the Government Accounting Office (up to $916 million); and a 13 percent increase for the Congressional Budget office (up to $71 million).
In his State of the Union, Biden boasted that he has reduced the federal deficit by more than $1 trillion during his time in office. But fact-checkers say that claim fails to acknowledge the decline is primarily a result of the unique post-pandemic financial landscape.
The drop was largely the result of COVID-relief measures expiring in 2022 and 2023, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that promotes fiscal responsibility.
The deficit stood at about $3.1 trillion in 2020 and $2.8 trillion in 2021, then fell to $1.4 trillion in 2022 before rising slightly to $1.7 trillion in 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
But that’s still well above where it was before the pandemic in 2019, when the federal deficit was $984 billion.
“In contrast to Biden’s claims that he’s reduced the deficit,” Ortiz argues, “Democrats under his leadership have entrenched near $2 trillion annual deficits …
“Ordinary Americans and small businesses are paying the price in terms of far higher costs on everyday items.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics collects, analyzes and publishes reliable information on many aspects of our economy and society. The BLS measures employment, compensation, worker safety and price movements.
The Jobs Creators Network is a non-partisan organization founded by entrepreneurs to promote the economic freedom that helped make the U.S. a prosperous country.