By Ashe O.
Washington, Aug 19 (IANS): The US economy has begun to look up with gas prices falling every day and shipping bottlenecks easing, due to President Joe Biden's recent legislative actions and his signature on the Inflation Reduction Act managing to stop and begin a strong return to a healthy environment since the pandemic.
The so-called runaway inflation would have meant more and more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and if that institution did not manage a very slim tightrope act, the country could have fallen into a recession. Much of what happens in Washington D.C., and throughout the nation is dependent upon perception, and the stock market swings up and down upon emotion.
"The President's brilliantly-named legislation cannot help but improve our country's financial situation," says the Bipartisan report, a portal which has a clear liberal bias. It's owned by the wholesale giant Costco and accepts email writers across the board.
The Biden administration has managed to pull a dramatic 60 per cent drop in the cost of lumber. Used car prices have finally flatlined. And crude oil prices have dropped 25 per cent. Even real estate prices have started back down. Everywhere a person looks, there has been evidence of a quickly-improving economy.
Then, there is the supply chain snarl which President Biden's people have been tasked with sorting out.
The RSM index pulls together economic data strands from "government and private industry economic reports" and determines a supply-chain number. Other indices such as that of The New York Fed also show "great improvement", according to The Axios.
"It shows a significant improvement in the backlogs, delays, and general unpredictability of doing business amidst the economic recovery from the pandemic (other supply chain indexes, like the one from the New York Fed, also show great improvement though not quite back to normal territory. Lower crude prices have contributed to the fall in gasoline prices reducing inflationary pressure and improving the likelihood of the Federal Reserve being now less aggressive in tightening policy - prospects of lesser interest hikes.
"A shopper will say, falling prices are not the same thing as inexpensive costs. But in fewer than two years, President Biden has taken us to an upward trending stock market, and a Federal Reserve no longer forced us to take more rate hikes," claimed the Bipartisan report.
Democratic action groups have sunk $10 million in an ad campaign to show Americans what the Inflation Reduction Act will do for them, according to The Bipartisan Report. And the President is sending out his Cabinet for a very public victory lap.
Vice President Kamala Harris, kicking off the campaign on the benefits of Biden's economic measures, said: "Our economy created over half a million jobs last month and over nine million jobs in the previous 18 months - meaning that we have recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic. While there's more work to do, we are delivering for the American people."
"Hopefully, the pandemics, wars, and disasters have abated, and our President can get back to the business of building our nation back better than before," she said hinting how the Build Back Better initiative of Biden was working.
The inflation reduction act signed by the President after both houses of Congress passed it is a modified version of the BBB initiative entailing an expenditure of near $1 trillion against the original $2 trillion, detailing enormous spends on reducing greenhouse emissions, giving tax credits and incentives for for fossil fuel producers to reduce carbon emissions, encouraging production of electric vehicles and capping prescription drug prices and reducing inflation through economic measures.