Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, as Milton Friedman, the economist and intellectual author of the Reagan Revolution used to explain.

Which means that when the Federal Reserve prints out more cash to shell out for bigger and bigger government programs, look out.

Inflation is on the way.

Don't take this from me, this time. It's now what one of President Obama's top economic advisors is now warning as Joe Biden gets ready to sign the $1.7 trillion Omnibus bill passed by Congress, including 18 skeevy Republicans:

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Steve Rattner, who served as counselor to the Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, stated that fiscal policy, like “the federal budget deficit, as well as various other things that the White House can do, have been mostly going the wrong way.” And the omnibus bill will lead to “more inflation, not less inflation.”

Rattner said, “Well, unfortunately, the policies outside of the Fed’s regime, which are basically what we call fiscal policy, the federal budget deficit, as well as various other things that the White House can do, have been mostly going the wrong way. This omnibus bill that will get passed presumably today, the $1.7 trillion spending bill, does increase the deficit more. It spends more, and all of that actually creates more inflation, not less inflation. The President’s student debt relief plan, whatever you think about the merits of canceling student debt, economists will tell you, it does add to inflation, because it, again, puts more money out in the economy and gives people more to spend.”

This would be the same Rattner who engaged in all kinds of mischief during the Obama years as Obama's "car czar," crafting the automotive industry bailout at what was then seen as an astronomical $82 billion taxpayer shell-out for private industry, including its rich executives and overpaid automotive industry workers. Unions made out like bandits on that one.

Eighty-two billion is pretty much a nothingburger now that we live in the age of profligate Joe Biden. If only the federal bailouts were a mere $82 billion.

According to Bonchie at RedState, we've got a dumpster fire of federal spending going full flame now.

The $1.7 trillion omnibus bill has passed congress, and it’s such a dumpster fire that it was even technically ready for the president’s signature.

No, I’m not kidding. Congress apparently passed a bill that wasn’t prepared to be signed. They then had to pass another continuing resolution to keep the government running in the meantime. If that’s not the perfect metaphor for how awful our federal government is, then one doesn’t exist.

 

Biden signs bill to keep government running while $1.7 trillion spending package is prepared https://t.co/LUm9peRtdu

— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 24, 2022

 

According to his piece, citing tweets and screenshots from Rep. Dan Crenshaw, this $1.7 trillion in new spending includes an extra $12 billion for the IRS for enforcement, on top of the $80 billion it had already been handed by the Omnibus bill passed just months ago, an extra $10.2 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency to harass farmers, another $3.4 billion for climate agenda items, a $1.9 billion package to fund catch and release programs by the border agencies (read: free hotel rooms), and millions for Planned Parenthood and anti-life policy implementation. Only the Border Patrol and the ICE deportation unit get stiffed, with funding way below their recruiting goals at a time of crisis, and no rise in agency funding whatsoever.

It's as disgusting a use for federal spending as its after-effects are to consumers.

We will pay for this misappropriation and misuse of money, not just through higher taxes but through runaway inflation, as if the current 7% and change CPI printout isn't enough, and the Bidenites long to see that CPI number rise to Argentina-style or Venezuelan-style double digits.

It's so bad, and so obviously bad that even the Obama officials are noticing it. Rattner's good pal Larry Summers has warned that the "Inflation Reduction Act" of 2022 would create inflation, and now we are seeing another monster bill, the Omnibus, right on top of it.

If this incoming Congress doesn't do something about this dumpster fire quickly, they will pay the political consequences, with low-information voters blaming them harder than they ever blamed Democrats in the past midterm, and Democrats will yelp with glee at their good fortune, to be able to put out campaign ads saying that sure, inflation was bad under Democrats but look how bad the Republicans made it. They will get away with that much, and already the Obama advisors can see that coming from a mile away.

Image: New America, via Wikipedia (cropped) // CC BY 2.0