Former Obama Advisor Calls Out Biden’s ‘Dishonest’ Excuse for Inflation in Pointed NYT Op-Ed

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Former Obama economic adviser Steven Rattner slammed President Joe Biden on Thursday over blaming the supply chain crisis for the rise in inflation, which rose 7.5 percent last month compared to January 2021, a 40-year high.

During Biden’s Super Bowl interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, the president said regarding the increase in inflation:

The reason for inflation is the supply chains were cut off, meaning that the products for example, automobiles, the lack of computer chips to be able to build those automobiles so they could function they need those computer chips. They were not available. So what happens? The number of cars were reduced, new cars reduced. It made up at one point, one third, the cost of inflation because the price of automobiles were up. So what I did when I went out and made sure we started to make those domestically. We got intel to come in and provide $20 billion to build a new facility. A number of organizations are doing the same kinds of things.

In a New York Times opinion piece, Rattner called Biden blaming the supply chain crisis for the inflation issue as “dishonest” in addition to “simplistic and misleading.”

“Blaming inflation on supply lines is like complaining about your sweater keeping you too warm after you’ve added several logs to the fireplace,” he wrote.

Instead, according to Rattner, the supply chain crisis has been “homegrown” as “Americans have resumed spending freely, and along the way, they have been creating shortages akin to those in a shopping mall on Black Friday.” The factors that have contributed to inflation, he said, have included “labor shortages” and the federal deficit. “Smaller deficits reduce net spending by government, thus helping offset demand by consumers,” wrote Rattner.

Rattner criticized the Biden administration stating that their proposed $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social spending plan will be “deficit neutral.” However, he continued, “that assertion is made credible only by using the fuzziest math.” Rattner cited the Congressional Budget Office projection that BBB would add close to $750 billion to the deficit over five years.

Rattner closed out his piece by calling on Biden to take a page from former President Bill Clinton’s 1993 playbook.

“He unexpectedly raised taxes in his budget to address the pressing matter of the federal budget deficit,” he wrote. “That decision served the country well — and ultimately also served him well.”

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