With a potentially disastrous midterm looming, an effort is under way to create the impression that Joe Biden and the Democrats are merely victims of the vagaries of a tumultuous economy.

Of course, it’s true that presidents are often unduly blamed for economic events beyond their control. Then again, if you’re going to take credit for every part-time job and each fraction of a percent added to GDP growth, you’re in no position to reject blame for undesirable facets of the economy. Covid was not Donald Trump’s doing any more than the housing-market crisis of 2007 was George Bush’s. They were still blamed. That’s political reality.

Biden, however, inherited an economy coming out of a state-induced artificial recession. We had little place to go but up. “Do no harm” should have been his administration’s credo. Instead, our political class aggravated the embedded problems by pushing wanton spending and policies that disincentivize work and undercut energy production. Yet, on a near-daily basis, Biden takes credit for employment growth that resulted from reopening an economy that was largely shut down by government mandates that Democrats supported and encouraged. It’s Munchausen by policy.

Rather than a return to normalcy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed this week that prices had increased 7.5 percent year over year in January 2022 — the biggest spike since 1982. Inflation also cut pay by 1.7 percent over the past year. Not only have a slew of products that Americans rely on gotten more expensive, but fears of additional price hikes have started to seriously eat away at consumer confidence. The University of Michigan’s consumer-sentiment measure has fallen to 61.7, one-tenth of a point off January’s, which was the lowest since 2011.

Biden knew that a surge of spending was coming once we began reopening. Yet there was no serious national debate — certainly no internal debate among Democrats — about the prospects of aggravating inflation. Why would there be? There were progressive agenda items that needed to be rammed through in “rescue” and reconciliation bills. A crisis does not exist to be wasted. This was the thinking that propelled ham-fisted policies and tone-deaf reaction to the threat of inflation.

First came the wishcasting. Inflation was merely “transitory.” (Fact check: In the cosmic sense, everything is merely temporary.) The president argued that “there’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist.” (This tack was reminiscent of Barack Obama’s deceitful contention that “no disagreement” existed among economists about the need for Obamacare.) White House press secretary Jen Psaki went further, claiming that “no economist,” period, was projecting higher inflation due to passage of the stimulus bill. When NBC’s Lester Holt, in an interview with the president this week, brought up these inflation predictions, Biden responded, “I think you’re being a wise guy with me a little bit; I understand that’s your job,” before launching into a word salad.

A year ago, Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute argued in National Review that the Democrats’ “rescue” package could generate substantial inflationary pressure and thus force the Fed to slow the recovery. He wasn’t the only one. Larry Summers, treasury secretary under President Clinton and economic adviser to President Obama, also famously warned that the Covid rescue plan would spark inflation. Nevertheless, the usual suspects dutifully dismissed concerns over the government’s dropping vast amounts of cash into the economy just as a surge of economic activity was about to be unleashed. “Weird,” a leftist econ reporter observed of Summers.

Once inflation picked up, it was dismissed as an inconvenience largely encumbering the 1 percenters — what Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain might call a “high-class problem” — or a figment of the imagination. Next, the focus shifted to blaming “corporate greed.” Psaki pointed the finger at “conglomerates” for rising meat prices. Senator Elizabeth Warren blamed Big Grocery. The Biden administration claimed “there is mounting evidence of anti-consumer behavior by oil and gas companies.” (A peculiar grievance for a president who pledged to severely cut fossil-fuel use.)

The various talking points were all deployed to provide cover for the effort to ram a $4 trillion reconciliation bill through Congress. Biden went so far as to argue that spending would alleviate inflation: “If your primary concern is about inflation, you should be even more enthusiastic about this plan. We can’t afford not to make these investments.” One imagines the same people who accept that we can’t afford not to spend $4 trillion are the type of people who believe that the most expensive bill in history really “costs zero dollars.”

Voters witnessed Democrats ignoring, dismissing, and dissembling on the inflation issue for months — passing a partisan bill of party favors posing as a rescue package. It is now increasingly clear that the Biden “stimulus” package played a part in perpetuating inflation. The United States has outpaced most nations on this front. Europe, where most nations were less reliant on government stimulus, have seen lower inflationary pressure. Both politically and structurally, Biden’s troubles are largely self-inflicted.