President Joe Biden appears to be participating in some revisionist history in explaining why he does not deserve blame for inflation.
On Friday, Biden delivered remarks on the January jobs report, which showed hiring surged last month.
Once he wrapped up his comments, he took some questions from reporters.
One asked, “Do you take any blame for inflation?”
“Do I take any blame for inflation? No,” Biden responded.
When asked why, the president said, “Because it was already here when I got here, man. Remember what the economy was like when I got here?”
“Jobs were hemorrhaging. Inflation was rising. We weren’t manufacturing a damn thing here,” he added.
Watch the video below:
Reporter: "Do you take any blame for inflation?"
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 3, 2023
Biden: "No"
Reporter: "Why not?"
Biden: "Because it was already here when I got here, man"
(Inflation was 2.4% when Biden took office and rose to a record high of 9.1%) pic.twitter.com/1zMp8avnca
Inflation was around when Biden took office. But it was nowhere near the 9.1% the country experienced in June 2022.
In Jan. 2021, prices rose by 1.4%.
And throughout the year, prices continued to surge, putting a squeeze on Americans’ pocketbooks. By December 2021, inflation came in at just over 7%, and in June 2022, it hit its peak of 9.1%.
To be fair to Biden, his predecessor’s spending and COVID-19 stimulus packages did contribute to inflation as the country began to emerge from the pandemic.
But he certainly did not help when he entered office and passed his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
PolitiFact pointed out last year, “No magic formula can reveal precisely how much the American Rescue Plan fueled inflation, but the general consensus is that it was a contributor. Some economists estimate that it added two percentage points to the rate, some say it added up to four percentage points.”
“Put another way, out of the 8.5% rate in March, the measure accounted for something between one quarter to one half of inflation,” it added.
No, inflation did not begin with Biden’s policies. But just because he did not provide the initial spark for the price increases, it does not mean he is free of any blame.