An ‘Ugly’ Inflation Report Upended Hopes That Price Gains Would Ease

Republicans blamed the president, as they have for more than a year, for the increases, saying his 2021 economic rescue bill effectively overheated the economy. “The truth is that inflation did not just sneak up on the Biden White House,” Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the top Republican on the Budget Committee, said on Friday. “The warning signs were there all along.”

Mr. Biden and his team have been trying to make a delicate pivot on the inflation issue, calling it his top economic priority and increasingly expressing sympathy for the households struggling to cope with rising prices. They have sought to reassure markets by leaning into a message of trust in the Fed to manage inflation with interest rate increases, while attempting to project a sense of urgency with actions that officials concede will have a small effect, at best, on broad prices — like an announcement this week that the administration was pausing tariffs on some imported solar panels.

Officials also continue to search for additional ways Mr. Biden might bring down the price of gasoline, which is largely dictated by global market forces and very difficult for presidents to influence in the short term to any large degree.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/business/economy/inflation-report-price-gains-biden.html