‘Bidenflation Blame Game’ report challenges Dems’ claims of corporate price gouging

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Yet another report challenges the Democratic narrative on the relationship between corporate greed and continuous inflation.

Titled “The Bidenflation Blame Game: How Big-Spending Politicians Scapegoat Business,” the report by Americans for Prosperity researchers Kurt Couchman and Ilana Blumsack says federal “policy mistakes” are most responsible for pushing the US inflation rate to its 41-year high in 2022. 

“Inflation has stayed high ever since, and overall prices have gone up 20 percent in just over three years,” they note.

“D.C. politicians’ wasteful spending and debt caused inflation,” the report opens with in bold orange letters. “Now they’re trying to shift the blame.”

President Biden himself sure is: “There are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation,” he said in January.

His allies, such as Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), often employ the strategy.

Casey has spent roughly $7.55 million on campaign ads that mention inflation since March — about 70% of his total advertising spending of $10.86 million during that period, per Keystone Renewal PAC researchers. Many of these ads, such as “Shrinky Dink” and “Fleeced,” lay the blame for higher prices at the feet of corporate “price gougers.”

The AFP report refutes this, contending that high prices are caused by debt-financed federal-government spending and COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the government, as well as other regulatory legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, American Rescue Plan and CHIPS and Science Act.

“Biden and allies say that higher corporate profits prove they’re taking advantage of consumers,” the report reads. “Yet these claims rely on exaggerated data and out-of-context quotations to conjure a flimsy case against providers of goods and services who have also grappled with inflation.”

A Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study published in May reached a similar conclusion.

The Fed study attributed high prices to “the combined effect of supply chain disruptions and a drop in labor supply during the post-pandemic recovery that occurred just as consumer demand rose.”

It also says that while corporate profits have risen, post-COVID profits are not abnormally high when compared with what corporations made during previous economic crises.   

“Data for the current recovery show that the increase in corporate profits is not particularly pronounced compared with previous recoveries,” the Fed study states. “Markups also have not played much of a role in the slowing of inflation since the summer of 2022.”