Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute argues against the “greedflation” narrative being pushed by Democrats:
After all, truly addressing inflation would require admitting that the American Rescue Plan dramatically worsened inflation, and then abandoning the Build Back Better proposal. It would mean repealing new tariffs, as well as canceling new Buy America rules, ethanol mandates, and expensive regulations on economic development. An anti-inflation agenda would include expanding capacity at our ports, repealing the Jones Act, a vintage piece of protectionist legislation that increases shipping costs, and suspending the Davis-Bacon Act’s prevailing-wage rules. A commonsense approach to inflation would also promote domestic oil and gas production and end the student-loan-payment moratorium.
Unfortunately, the White House is not interested in those policies that — combined with a tighter Federal Reserve policy — would aggressively bring down inflation. Too many Democratic interest groups would be offended.
Instead, Democrats have decided to simply shift blame by scapegoating and demagoguing “greedy corporations” that somehow decided in early 2021 to begin gouging consumers with steep price increases. . . .
Read the whole thing here.