Pols should at least stop making inflation worse

There’s not a ton that most politicians can do to push inflation down. The few, limited tools they have available might carry some political risk. So maybe it’s unreasonable to expect them to try, and perhaps pundits like me should stop fussing.

But can we at least agree that politicians shouldn’t do things that will make inflation worse?

That message hasn’t yet made it here to Massachusetts, where Democratic state lawmakers have proposed sending out checks to most residents to help absorb the “increased costs due to inflation [that] have cut into family budgets.” Gov. Charlie Baker, R, has said the proposal would represent “a welcome piece of relief.”

“Given that the cost of everything has gone up, anything helps,” the governor said last week.

Sadly, it’s not actually the case that “anything” helps. “Inflation relief” check proposals like this one, which have also been proposed or adopted in California, Indiana, Delaware and several other states, are likely to be actively harmful in the fight against inflation. That’s because these and other tax cuts or rebates will make red-hot demand even hotter.

Inflation has lately reached 40-year highs because demand is strong while supply remains constrained.

Consumers have a lot of cash on hand, thanks to both pandemic-forced savings (delayed vacations, fewer restaurant outings, etc.) and federal policies that pumped a lot of money into their pockets as well as the broader economy.

Meanwhile, global supply chains are still snarled and worker shortages persist across many sectors. Companies simply can’t ramp up production quickly enough to give consumers everything they want. So, the prices for the products that are available get bid higher.

The best, least painful way to fix this mismatch between demand and supply would be to dramatically expand supply. That’s easier said than done, however.

There are a few things federal policymakers could do to help with supply-side problems. These include allowing in more competition from foreign suppliers and ships. Or, fixing bottlenecks in our legal immigration system could increase the supply of workers.

So far, the Biden administration and federal Democratic lawmakers have been reluctant to adopt such measures. Perhaps they fear alienating crucial allies (such as organized labor). Maybe they worry about providing fodder for right-wing attacks about being “soft on China.”

The other obvious way to deal with that demand-supply disparity involves reducing demand. This is precisely what the Federal Reserve is doing.

By raising interest rates, the central bank is making borrowing more expensive, which in turn cools spending, particularly on big purchases (such as houses and cars).

Unfortunately, both federal and state politicians have lately decided to make the Fed’s already hard job even harder.

The main lever politicians seem to want to pull in times of economic turmoil is to cut taxes or otherwise send out money. And, look, in some scenarios sending out checks is helpful — if we’re in a recession, say, and facing the risk of deflation. Then it’s useful to give households cash to support their spending, particularly if those households have suffered job losses.

But now is not one of those times. Usually these checks are referred to as “stimulus payments” because they’re designed to “stimulate” the economy. If the problem now is overheating, what exactly are we trying to stimulate?

Federal politicians are also weighing other measures that might, on the margin, juice demand and thereby make inflation worse, such as a gas tax “holiday” or broad-based student debt forgiveness. All of these measures would make that demand-supply mismatch a bit worse.

Sending out yet more checks, and avoiding supply-side interventions that could anger some allies, probably looks politically smart in the near term. Longer term could be a very different story.