AFP, Washington :
President Joe Biden blames global supply snarls for the wave of price increases hitting US consumers and businesses, but the trillions of dollars injected into the economy during the pandemic also share responsibility.
The Covid-19 crisis disrupted manufacturing worldwide and caused shipping snags, creating global shortages of key materials that combined to push prices higher. Amid a rapid recovery from the pandemic, US consumer prices soared seven percent last year, the highest in nearly four decades.
“Inflation has everything to do with the supply chain,” Biden said during his lengthy press conference Wednesday.
But many economists and Biden’s Republican opposition say massive federal stimulus and new spending also bear some of the blame for the inflation wave — which the president’s critics have labeled “Bidenflation.”
“The last year, the glut of federal dollars that’s been pumped into our economy, has fueled the surge in prices,” said Stephanie Bice, a Republican lawmaker from Oklahoma.
Not long after he took office one year ago, Biden pushed a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan through Congress, the third pandemic aid program, despite overwhelming Republican opposition.
