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Trump Keeps Stacking Up Wins, New Data Shows Inflation Slowed More Than Expected

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Inflation came in cooler than expected in January, and the lowest annual rate that it has been since April 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden took office.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the Consumer Price Index rose 2.4 percent over the last 12 months, which is down from 2.7 percent in December.

Energy prices fell 1.5 percent in January, helping to bring the CPI to the 2.4 percent level, and rent also came in at a low 0.2 percent increase, the BLS said.

“Excluding food and energy, the core CPI was up 2.5%, the lowest level since April 2021. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an annual rate of 2.5% for both readings,” CNBC reported.

President Donald Trump responded to the news, telling reporters, “The inflation numbers that were just announced, as you know, are way down, and we have it back on track. We had the worst in the history of our country, and now, we have very modest inflation, which is what you want to have.”

Fox News reported that, in addition to inflation coming in lower than expected, real wages are up 1.25 percent under Trump after falling 1.4 percent under Biden. Real wages are the measure of pay in relation to inflation. So under Trump, wage increases are outpacing the inflation rate by 1.25 percent.

CNN’s Matt Egan celebrated the inflation news, saying, “This is some encouraging news on the cost of living. Inflation took a big step in the right direction to start the year off.”

Egan, in effect, acknowledged inflation is trending back down, even with Trump’s additional tariffs still in place, which he argued caused a slight price increase last spring.

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Inflation began to increase during the Biden administration shortly after he signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law in March 2021, as the economy was already well on its way to recovery.

The inflation rate was 1.4 percent when Trump left office in January 2021. It averaged 1.9 percent during his entire four years in office, among the lowest of any president going back to Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.

The month after the America Rescue Plan was passed and hundreds of billions of borrowed and printed dollars began to flow into the economy, inflation went up to 4.2 percent and continued until it spiked at 9.1 percent in June 2022.

In a February 2021 opinion piece for The Washington Post, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned Democrats that passing the ARP would “set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability.”

After it passed the following month, Summers called it “the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years.”

Further, former Obama administration Treasury Department official Steven Rattner in a November 2021 article for The New York Times, identified the ARP as the “original sin” leading to high inflation.

He pointed to Summers’ warning, as well as “many others.”

“We worried that shoveling an unprecedented amount of spending into an economy already on the road to recovery would mean too much money chasing too few goods,” Rattner noted.

The policies that Trump and the Republicans implemented with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 and the Big Beautiful Bill last summer are known as supply-side economics.

Tax cuts are used to incentivize businesses to increase their production, and therefore the supply of goods, which has a disinflationary effect.

Larry Kudlow — a former top economic adviser to presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump — argued in May 2022 as inflation spiked, “The tax hikes and the environmental restrictions [under Biden] are suppressing the supply side of the economy — not enough goods. And the spending increases the demand side of the economy — too much cash.”

“If you are going to spend more than you can produce, well, prices have to go up. And the obvious solution is to spend less and produce more,” he said.

Trump is proving once again that the best way to get inflation under control is to grow the private sector and reduce government spending.

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Randy DeSoto has written more than 3,000 articles for The Western Journal since he began with the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths" and screenwriter of the political documentary "I Want Your Money."
Randy DeSoto wrote and was the assistant producer of the documentary film "I Want Your Money" about the perils of Big Government, comparing the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Randy is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths," which addresses how leaders have appealed to beliefs found in the Declaration of Independence at defining moments in our nation's history. He has been published in several political sites and newspapers.

Randy graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a BS in political science and Regent University School of Law with a juris doctorate.
Birthplace
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Nationality
American
Honors/Awards
Graduated dean's list from West Point
Education
United States Military Academy at West Point, Regent University School of Law
Books Written
We Hold These Truths
Professional Memberships
Virginia and Pennsylvania state bars
Location
Phoenix, Arizona
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics, Entertainment, Faith




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