‘We should have named it what it was’

"WE SHOULD HAVE NAMED IT WHAT IT WAS." The Inflation Reduction Act was perhaps the signature achievement of the Biden-Harris administration. The only problem was that it wasn't about inflation and did not reduce inflation. Rather, it was a giant, $369 billion climate spending bill that Democrats, for whatever reason, believed they could not openly say was a giant, $369 billion climate spending bill. And since inflation, fueled by other Biden-Harris spending, was raging at the time, they decided to call the climate bill the "Inflation Reduction Act" and hope nobody would notice.

Now, President Joe Biden has finally admitted the bill wasn't about inflation and that the name did not describe what it was. Speaking T hursday at an event in Westby, Wisconsin, to tout all the spending he has gotten through Congress in one term, Biden said he wants to highlight the "progress we've made together by our 'Investing in America' agenda." Biden continued: "I'm proud to announce that my, uh, my investments, that through my investments, the most significant climate change law ever. And by the way, it is a $369 billion bill. It's called the — uh, we, we should have named it what it was.”

We should have named it what it was. Finally Biden, fading mentally and having trouble completing a sentence, was straight with the people about the Inflation Reduction Act. Perhaps Vice President Kamala Harris, who cast the deciding vote that allowed the bill to pass the Senate and become law, will do the same.

And while they are at it, they can admit that the Inflation Reduction Act did not, in fact, reduce inflation. Of course, some will say, wait a minute, the rate of inflation has decreased in the last two years — that is, prices are still rising but at a slower rate than before. Didn't the Inflation Reduction Act have something to do with that? Apparently not.

"Most economists say little to none of the drop came from the law," the Associated Press reported last year. "'I can't think of any mechanism by which it would have brought down inflation to date,' said Harvard University economist Jason Furman.”

One more thing. Maybe someday Biden and Harris will also come to terms with what the bill will actually cost taxpayers. In Wisconsin, Biden said it was $369 billion, but estimates suggest it will be much, much more than that. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office projected the final cost of the bill will top $800 billion . A Bloomberg analysis suggested it will "push past $1 trillion." It appears that for years Biden and Harris never uttered a single accurate word about the title "Inflation Reduction Act." Now that Biden has, perhaps Harris, campaigning to become president of the United States, will, too.