As noted at the end of today’s Morning Jolt and as Kyle Smith lays out with wit and precision, Democrats are really hoping Thursday evening’s January 6 Commission hearings in prime-time will be a blockbuster that dramatically change the current political narrative and national mood.
Besides all the usual reasons to be skeptical, the commission will have barely finished banging its gavel to adjourn when another big national news bomb will drop: “May 2022 Consumer Price Index data are scheduled to be released on June 10, 2022, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.”
Now, we don’t know precisely what the national inflation numbers for May will be, but we can all sense they’re not going to be good. In March, it was 8.5 percent; in April it was 8.3 percent. In the last few days, expectations have been inching higher, although the consensus has been wrong in both directions. Last week CNBC quoted one analyst expecting a figure of 8.2 percent.
You may see efforts to spin any decline, no matter how marginal, as a sign that “inflation took a breather.” But inflation moving just a little bit lower than the 40-year-high is not the kind of change that the American consumer is likely to notice. In fact, I think one of the reasons the Democrats are in rough shape is they keep seizing on any miniscule improvement in any economic figure as a sign the problem is solved. Think of the White House boasting that 2021 Independence Day cookouts are sixteen cents cheaper than a year before, the DCCC tweet about a two-cent decline in gas prices, and Karine Jean-Pierre’s recent insistence that “the economy is in a better place than it has been historically.”
According to the Energy Information Association, the national average price for a gallon of gas at the start of May was $4.18; by the end of the month it was $4.62. High gas and transportation prices worsen inflationary pressures instead of alleviating them. And June isn’t looking good either; this morning the national average price is just under five dollars a gallon, at $4.95.
Who knows, maybe Thursday night’s hearing really will generate some bombshell. But by about 9 a.m. on Friday morning, a lot of Americans will be thinking about high inflation again.