by Peter C. Earle
The American Institute for Economic Research
Twice in the past few weeks President Joe Biden has claimed that when he took office in January 2021 inflation was “over nine percent.” First on CNN’s OutFront with Erin Burnett on May 8 and again on May 14 in a Yahoo! Finance interview, the bizarre comment was made. And as has become a routine with the gaffe-prone chief executive, White House staffers added shamelessness to what could have been limited to embarrassment by issuing a statement: “The President was making the point that the factors that caused inflation were in place when he took office. The pandemic caused inflation around the world by disrupting our economy and breaking our supply chains.”
Americans will have to decide for themselves if the claim made by Biden was a lie intended to mislead anyone not familiar with the trajectory of prices over the past several years, or an innocent error. It is a choice US citizens have been confronted with frequently, in particular where assertions regarding the health of the economy have been made.
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