On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that while he agrees with the direction of President Joe Biden’s budget plan there is a real threat of inflation and too much debt, and that inflation would impact the people who need help the most.
Brooks stated, “The two cautionary warnings, I would say, is, first, the threat of inflation is real. This is not just notional. It’s not just Warren Buffett warning about this and other businesspeople. The Consumer Price Index is up. And maybe this is just a hiccup and these are temporary inflationary effects. But if we overheat the economy and wind up with inflation, then the Fed has to slam on the brakes, and the very people who need the help most will suffer most. And so that is something real to look at.”
He added, “[I]f your debt passes 100% of GDP, your nation is going to be in trouble. And to pretend that law no longer exists worries me.”
Brooks further stated that overheating the economy “leads to inflation, which leads to lower living standards, which leads to huge government payments on the debt that we owe. And it leads to the 1970s, which was all sorts of bad things.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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