Build Back beatdown for Biden

Fiscal double whammy

FRIDAY was arguably the worst day for Joe Biden’s presidency so far. And it could be the death knell for the Build Back Better bill’s lurch toward big-government socialism.

First, the Labor Department reported inflation is now running at just under 7 percent over the last year. Prices were rising at a 2 percent annual pace when Donald Trump left office in January and then 5 percent this summer and now this.

Notice a trend?

And, sorry, no, this inflation isn’t “transitory.” And, no, CNN, it isn’t “good for you” — or me, or anyone. Meat prices are up 20 to 25 percent, car prices up 29 percent, and a fill-up at the gas station costs $20 more than a year ago.

Joe Biden and his media flacks rushed to the TV cameras in full damage-control mode on Friday to assure Americans that passing the BBB plan would reduce inflation. One wonders whether these folks would pass a liedetector test. Americans aren’t buying it. Polls show more than half of voters blame Biden and runaway spending for inflation.

But then a few hours later came the second body blow to the Biden agenda. The Congressional Budget Office released a report that examined the true cost of the Biden BBB plan — minus the accounting gimmicks. The results were devastating: twice as high as previously reported and closer to $5 trillion in spending over the next decade. Instead of “paying for itself,” as Biden claims, the deficit could skyrocket by almost $3 trillion more if Congress passes BBB.

Whoops! This is a bit more than a rounding error. If a private CEO tried to get away with these accounting scams, they’d be put in jail.

West Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is now admitting the obvious: He’s worried that another multitrillion-dollar spending bill steamrolling through this Democratic Congress will make the inflation contagion worse.

He wants a “strategic pause” for a social-welfare/ climate-change bill that he now calls bad for the country — and especially bad for West Virginia, a gas and coal state.

I’d rather put a dagger through the heart of this oinker spending bill altogether. As even Obama economist Jason Furman has pointed out, inflation is not a global phenomenon right now, as evidenced by the much lower price increases in Europe.

The inflation contagion is a made-in-Washington crisis. If the Washington spending spree doesn’t end soon, the inflation will continue to climb and put America at risk of a financial crisis and a gutwrenching recession.

And, if that happens, Joe, the first job that will be lost will be yours.

Stephen Moore is an economist at Freedom Works who served as a member of President Donald Trump’s Economic Recovery Task Force.