President Biden’s Build Back Better plan is intended to reshape the role of government in the lives of Americans. Yet whether it passes Congress comes down to a completely different matter: what lawmakers think it will do to inflation.
Unfortunately, neither side in this debate gets the impact right. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who opposes the current legislative package, conflates the effect of past and future spending on today’s inflation. The Biden administration credits the plan with anti-inflationary effects that independent research doesn’t support.
