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Care for another margarita? It will cost you double.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took a jab at White House press secretary Jen Psaki in a new inflation-themed video on National Margarita Day on Tuesday.
The video opens with a clip from Psaki’s Jan. 21 interview, in which the press secretary offered advice to Americans who were “frustrated” and “angry.”
INFLATION ACCELERATES 7.5% IN JANUARY, HITTING A FRESH 40-YEAR HIGH
“My advice to everyone out there who is frustrated, sad, angry, p—ed off, feel those emotions, go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita, do whatever you need to do this weekend, and then wake up on Monday morning, we’ve got to keep fighting,” Psaki says.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks at a news briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022.
(Associated Press)
The camera pans to DeSantis, who is watching Psaki from a Florida bar with a margarita before him.
“Having a margarita is well and good, but it is not a cure for Bidenflation,” the governor says.
Fastest since 1982
The consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, rose 7.5% in January from 2021, marking the fastest increase since February 1982, when inflation hit 7.6%. The Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan group at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, found that only households with $100,000 or more in income saw their annual wage income rise by significantly more than consumption costs in 2021.
Companies across various industries are hiking prices to keep up with increased costs. Dollar Tree announced it would sell products at prices above $1 to keep up with rising inflation and shipping costs.
Critics of the Biden administration claim that profligate federal spending has triggered this inflation. Larry Kudlow boiled it down to three factors: “Too much spending, too many incentives not to work and produce, and too much money creation.”
The White House maintained that Biden’s Build Back Better plan – which failed in the Senate – would fight inflation.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the opening of a monoclonal antibody site Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
(Associated Press)
Psaki fact-checked
Psaki claimed that “no economist out there is projecting that this will have a negative impact on inflation. And actually, what it will help do is it will help increase economic productivity. It will help economic growth in this country. That, and the Build Back Better Agenda will help reduce inflation, will help cut costs for the American people over the long term.”
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Fact-checkers faulted her for this claim, noting that many economists predicted that Build Back Better would increase inflation.
“I’m an economist, and I disagree,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, told PolitiFact. “We know there’s lots of spending in the bill, and that it’s front-loaded” into the earlier years, he said. “If you cut taxes and increase spending, financed by debt, that will put upward pressure on inflation.”
