President Joe Biden complained Friday he was “sick” of Americans blaming him for inflation instead of the coronavirus pandemic or Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’m sick of this stuff… The American people think the reason for inflation is the government spending more money,” Biden said angrily. “Simply. Not. True.”
The President made his remarks at a Democrat policy retreat to Democrats in Philadelphia in a rambling speech about issues facing his presidency.
“Democrats didn’t cause this problem. Vladimir Putin did,” Biden said, pointing to the latest inflation reports.
The President is suffering from terrible ratings on the economy due to his failure to address inflation.
Sixty-three percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the issue of inflation and rising prices, according to a recent poll, including 54 percent who strongly disapprove.
During his speech, Biden falsely blamed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for causing gas prices to rise in 2022, starting in January.
“From the moment he put his over 150,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, the price of gasoline in January went up 75 cents,” he said, referring to Putin.
Prices rose about eight cents per gallon in January and did not spike until March when Putin significantly escalated his war in Ukraine.
“Make no mistake, inflation is largely the fault of Putin,” Biden griped.
The president held up print-outs off stories from The Washington Post and the New York Times to dispute his responsibility for rising gas prices and inflation.
But even former Democrat officials have outlined that Biden’s reckless spending agenda, as well as the Federal Reserves’ policies, overstimulated the economy and led to growing inflation.
Former Treasury Secretary for Barack Obama Larry Summers told the Harvard Gazette in an interview that government intervention in the economy is partially responsible for inflation, suggesting it was an overreaction to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We had an economy where income was running short by $50 billion a month because of the pandemic, and we injected $150 billion to $200 billion a month into that economy,” he wrote.
“This is Biden’s inflation and he needs to own it,” wrote former Barack Obama administration czar Steve Rattner wrote on social media after the White House tried to blame Putin for inflation.
Inflation sharply spiked in March 2021, after Biden’s first $1.9 trillion spending bill passed.
