The reliably wrong progressive Tressie Macmillan Cottom acknowledges that unemployment is very low, inflation has reached reasonable levels, real wages are rising, and inequality is falling. Nevertheless, she insists that the economy sucks. Why? Because prices are higher than they were two years ago, and the welfare state–particularly with regard to child care–hasn’t been expanded to compensate.
Two observations are pertinent here:
- The welfare state was, in fact, expanded during the pandemic years. The expansion was temporary, due to resistance, not from Biden and the Democrats, but from a united GOP and Joe Manchin. Wouldn’t it make more sense to attack the GOP on this issue than to whine about the failures of the Democrats?
- To the very limited extent that Biden has any responsibility for inflation, it revolves around the economic impacts of the pandemic welfare state expansion that Ms. Cottom thinks was so essential.
What alternative is the left proposing here? I don’t see one that makes sense.