ICYMI: Dems have no answers for inflation and rising costs
Democrats are getting hammered with questions from voters about their damaging economic policies that are causing inflation to rise and the cost of goods to skyrocket.
Voters are worried about their cost of living increasing, Democrat strategists are freaking out, but Democrats just keep spending.
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Dems Brace for Inflation Attacks During August Recess
Susan Crabtree
Real Clear Politics
8/2/2021
Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne, one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents heading toward the 2022 midterm elections, spent an early July afternoon talking to constituents’ from the cool environs of an ice cream shop in her district when the discussion suddenly heated up.
“I just wanted to ask, are you concerned about the rising gas prices and the rise in the cost of consumer goods here in Iowa and in America?” one constituent asked.
A smiling Axne (pictured) quickly grew serious.
“You know what, here’s the deal: They’re comparing costs against last year,” she responded. “I’d say that we’ve had a few things increase because we were in the middle of COVID, so no, I’m not concerned about false advertisement.”
Just days earlier, over the July Fourth weekend, Republicans had run a digital media campaign targeting Axne and 10 other vulnerable House Democratic seats over the rising costs of “burgers, buns, propane and gas.”
This year, your Fourth of July is more expensive because Democrats’ harmful economic policies are making everyday goods cost more,” the ad’s narrator said, urging viewers to call Axne and tell her: “We can’t afford this.”
Two days later, in an interview with a Des Moines television station, the two-term congresswoman flatly dismissed the idea that the economy is experiencing inflation. “We’re not even remotely close to a point to say that we’re at rising inflation,” she said, arguing that the country needs “to wait ’til we have an actual, an expert, who says that’s what’s happening. … Right now, we’ve been able to, you know, keep inflation from being a big issue.”
Over the past month, Axne had plenty of company as several of her vulnerable Democratic brethren awkwardly fielded questions about this year’s rising costs of goods and services while defending plans to pass trillions of dollars more in infrastructure and anti-poverty funding. All the spending, along with a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief stimulus bill passed earlier this year, is pushing up demand and prices and will only exacerbate an already overheated economy, many economists have warned.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, struggled to play down inflation as short-term issue, along with labor shortages, using the analogy of turning water back on in a previously frozen pipe. “You turn them back on for the first time — it coughs and spits a little bit,” he told constituents at a town-hall gathering in mid-July.
The argument mirrors one President Biden recently made when he said of inflation: “The overwhelming consensus is it’s going to pop up and little bit and then go back down.”
The only problem? Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that inflation “could turn out to be higher and more persistent than we expected.” He softened those remarks afterward by stressing that he believes “the economy has made progress” toward the Fed’s goals of reaching maximum employment and getting inflation back on track to be slightly higher than 2% annually.
Meanwhile, Rep. Katie Porter, a top target of Republicans who represents a district in California’s traditionally more conservative Orange County, readily acknowledged rising inflation, predicting it would extend into next year — though she promoted the importance of the child tax credit to help offset those costs.
“As a mom of three, I’m pretty sure that shoes, clothes and Cinnamon Toast Crunch aren’t gonna magically get cheaper next year,” she remarked during a July 12 town-hall.
The jumbled July responses and flat-out denials came with a political cost for Democrats, senior party strategists argue. Nearly six in 10 Americans believe that Biden administration economic policies are to blame for the 13-year high in inflation, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday.
The House is now out on a seven-week recess, and national Democratic messaging gurus want to avoid a repeat performance. In a confidential memo delivered to party leaders, strategists for Build Back Together, a dark-money group formed to promote Biden’s agenda, called the GOP’s inflation attack ads the most powerful critique of his proposals “to date.” Citing focus-group findings, the memo specifically referenced the National Republican Congressional Campaign’s July Fourth weekend ads.
“Notably, they did more damage with this ad than nearly any other conservative ad tested, and they were able to do it in [15 seconds] instead of the typical [30 seconds],” said the memo, first reported by the Washington Post.
Since those GOP spots ran one month ago, the inflation picture has grown bleaker. A July 13 Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed inflation rising across the country and the consumer price index jumping 0.9%, the largest one-month increase since 2008.
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