The other day Joe Biden congratulated himself for stealing less of our money than he had the two years before. In his written remarks on the Consumer Price Index’s (CPI) performance in 2023, he said “At a time when growth and employment remain strong, inflation declined by two thirds from its peak but we know there’s still work to do to lower costs.”
The CPI increased 3.1% on 2023. It would have been right at four percent last year but gasoline and other energy prices dropped enough to make the difference.
Mr. Biden (or whoever wrote his script) was correct in saying the rate of inflation had fallen by two-thirds: in 2021 inflation was 9.1%; it was 7% in 2022.
Since inflation never drops prices back to where they were before, you need to multiply the amounts to get an idea of how bad things are. If, say, something cost a dollar in 2020, it cost $1.09 at the end of 2021, then 1.09 x 1.07, or $1.17 at the end of 2022, and 1.09 x 1.07 x 1.03 or $1.20 at the end of 2023.
So inflation has raised prices 20% since Joe Biden was inaugurated. That means in addition to paying taxes that equal about 30% of everything you make, the government has conspired to take another 20% on top of that. And there are no deductions or tax credits for inflation. If taxation is theft by another name—after all, you must pay someone money or go to jail—then inflation is armed robbery.
Some people with a lack of imagination still blame inflation on greedy businessmen, the targets of Marxists for 150 years. Perhaps they still believe these guys take their profits to the bank in giant cloth bags with dollar signs on them, too.
Yes, businessmen are technically greedy, since they want to make more money next year than they did this year. Executives at publicly-owned companies must increase profits year-to-year to hold up the stock price, or they’ll be fired. But if simple greed causes inflation, why doesn’t my local supermarket raise the price of a loaf of bread to ten bucks and laugh all the way to the bank?
Because, of course, other businessmen are greedy too. They would be willing to sell that bread for $9.50 and still make huge profits. Others would cut the price further until finally bread is being sold for the cost of making it plus enough profit to keep the grocery store in business until next year. That’s what free enterprise and competition do.
Sadly, government allows no competition. If it did, I’d immediately set up “Discount Dave’s Cheap-o Government,” offer lower taxes and stop sending billions to corrupt bosses in Ukraine. Instead our monopoly government produces the money that we are forced to use as legal tender and if it spews out more of it to finance massive budget deficits, we have to accept it even as its value plunges. A hundred years ago twenty dollars was worth an ounce of gold; today it’s closer to 2,000.
You might think the price of gold is irrelevant today, but the Founders didn’t. It’s all there in the Constitution, Article One, Section 10, where it says “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” Remember, that was back when the state governments were supposed to be more powerful than the feds. Sadly, John Hancock and pals didn’t set that phrase in larger type or use sparkly ink for that particular section; the Federal Reserve today simply hands out pieces of paper that say they’re legal tender, so shut up.
Inflation is literally taxation without representation, since none of our elected officials vote to approve it or the rate at which it occurs. Taxes have to be at a specific rate and set on a specific thing, such as imported goods or incomes, but inflation simply snatches away a part of everything and leaves us all poorer. You might think your home, you income or your mutual fund are increasing in value, but more likely all you’re seeing is the dollar dropping in value. Then, once the dollar has dropped enough and you decide to sell some of your assets, the government calls the increase a "capital gain” or “higher income” and taxes you on that.
Inflation is a tax that has cost us 20% of our money in just three years, and if your other assets appear to have increased in value, you owe more money on that, too. For a country that was set up to be the first one that respected its own citizens and gave them the power, we’re doing poorly.