Commentary: Don’t blame the president for economic conditions

This may not impact those of you who are living paycheck to paycheck, but I would ask you to continue to read on. I often hear people complain that the economy is worse now than it was four years ago. Do you remember what happened four years ago? We were hit by a worldwide pandemic. Was that the fault of the president? Do you remember almost every business that was not critical was closed down? People stayed home with little income. Few cars were on the road. When people did go to the store they wore masks and plastic gloves, and grocery shelves became more and more barren.

Do you remember all the ships waiting off Long Beach docks with no one to unload them and no truckers to carry their cargoes inland? Do you remember chicken producers killing their stock because of the bird flu epidemic that ran concurrently? Do you remember milk producers pouring their produce on the ground because they had no way of getting it to market? Was any of this the fault of the president?

Finally, thanks to our scientific community, vaccines became available and things started to get back to “normal.” In order to get the economy going Congress passed several stimulus bills that put a flush of money into people’s hands. We now know it was too much. It should have gone to only Americans of a certain income level, not everyone. But, it still took time to restock those shelves.

The basic laws of economy kick in: When supply is low and demand is high, prices go up. Unfortunately, when they go up, they rarely come down to their original level. (Walmart reported an increase of 6.7% in profits last year.)

So, people were flush with stimulus money and though prices were high, they went out and spent. At one point inflation was at more than 9%. In order to curb this, The Federal Reserve increased interest rates.

This was a tightrope: If it increased rates too much it would drive the U.S. (and probably the world) into a recession. Many, many economists predicted exactly this. However, the Fed kept a fine balance on the interest rates and the recession did not happen. However, it did make loans more expensive. Do you remember that new car prices became so expensive that people were buying used cars at former new car prices? Do you remember the housing industry almost coming to a standstill even though there was a great demand for housing, though the mortgage rates were too high? Do you remember that credit card rates increased and are still high?

All of this hurt the economy, but it did bring inflation down to 3.4% in 2023.

So, due to the pandemic we have more money in circulation (stimulus), higher prices (shortages), and higher interest rates (to reduce inflation). The president has little control over any of this — it is the result of a market economy.

Yet I see mall parking lots full. I see restaurants full of people. I see a lot of new cars whizzing around with paper tags. And people still say the economy was better four years ago.

Well, there were many reasons why, but mainly it was because of the COVID pandemic and how we reacted to it and President Biden had little control over it.

During all of this, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and Hamas attacked Israel and caused the subsequent war in Palestine. Did the president have any control over either?

While supporting our allies, President Biden increased the national debt by $1.84 trillion. (With his tax cuts to the wealthy, Donald Trump increased it by $8.4 trillion.) This is according to USA Today. you ven you

So, I understand that many people are hurting and even though 14.25 million jobs have been added to the economy (according to FactCheck.com), wages have increased and the stock market has hit new highs.

We tend to blame the government for all our woes. But I think from above, a reasonable voter can see that it is mainly due to “once in a century” circumstances.

Gerard Pahl lives in Edinburg.