The Real "High Class" Problems Americans Face are Liberal Elites' Ignorance and Indifference

The only high-class problem Americans face is that those liberal elites in charge are ignorant, stubborn, and above all, indifferent to ordinary American people’s daily struggles.

The latest U.S. inflation data is alarming. Measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the October inflation rate was up 5.4 percent over a 12-month period, the highest level we have seen in 30 years. Some of the most significant price increases were food items such as meat and egg, which increased more than 10 percent, and gas, which was more than 42 percent more expensive than a year ago. The U.S. Department of Energy cautioned Americans to expect to pay 54 percent more this winter to keep our homes warm. Working-class Americans do not need government bureaucrats to tell them something they have already known because the working class bears the negative effect of inflation more than anyone else.  

As Henry Hazlitt wrote in his book, The Mirage of Inflation, “Inflation is a form of taxation. It is perhaps the worst possible form, which usually bears hardest on those least able to pay... It is a tax not only on every individual’s expenditures, but on his savings account, and life insurance. “Inflation doesn’t affect everyone evenly because “the poor may be more heavily taxed by inflation, in percentage terms than the rich.” Every day, it’s those least able to pay who have to make the painful tradeoff of which spending to cut back, what cheaper substitute they can find, and what items they can live without, so they can continue to put food on the table and pump gas into their cars so they can go to work.  

Besides rising prices, Americans are increasingly facing empty shelves due to supply chain disruptions. The CEO of Albertsons, one of the largest grocery store chains in the country, said customers should expect “something missing in our stores” on “any given day.” Some families are stocking up on canned goods, turkeys and have even begun shopping for Christmas early because they have been warned that not everything they used to have would be available this holiday season. Just like inflation, the supply chain disruption has harmed the most vulnerable population in our society. In my hometown, Denver, Colorado, a food and milk shortage has affected local schools’ food programs. It is worth noting that more than 60 percent of the student population at Denver Public School District are eligible for the district’s free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs. For these kids, the meals they get to have at schools are often the only decent meals they will have all day.

Yet, rather than showing empathy, the nation’s liberal elites tell us that the inflation and supply chain disruptions we face are “high class” problems that we’re lucky to have.  

Harvard University’s professor Jason Furman, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama, recently tweeted, “Most of the economic problems we’re facing (inflation, supply chains, etc.) are high-class problems. We wouldn’t have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have had a much worse problem.” His tweet is so out of touch with the reality that it has drawn plenty of backlash on Twitter, including this one: “My gas is a full dollar more expensive than last year. Eggs, meat and bread are all making a trip to the grocery store that used to cost me 80 bucks cost around 110. And I can’t find toilet paper again. These all seem like average people issues to me. But I don’t teach at Harvard.”  

Nevertheless, Ron Klain, President Biden’s Chief of Staff, gave a thumbs up for Furman’s post with a retweet. But not so long ago, Klain seemed to have a different belief. Back in March 2018, responding to then-Vice President Mike Pence’s promotion of the 2017 tax cut, Klain tweeted, “Will he hold up a Campbell Soup can and argue that price increases for basic food items don’t really hurt the middle class?” At the time, the U.S. inflation rate was about 2.4 percent, almost half of where the inflation rate is now, the unemployment rate was less than 4 percent, and we had no supply chain problems. It costs more to buy a can of Campbell Soup today than in 2018, and the can is getting smaller. Yet, because there is a Democrat in the White House, Klain suddenly disregarded his previous concern about how inflation hurts the middle class. 

Klain isn’t the only one who spun economic truth for political expediency. He has plenty of company in the White House. Last month, Brian Deese, White House Director of National Economic Council, assured Americans that the U.S. inflation rate wasn’t bad if rising meat prices were excluded from the CPI. Last week, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki doubled down by claiming  rising prices of goods is a good thing because “it means more people are buying.” This week, Paski also downplayed the supply chain disruption and goods shortage by joking about “the tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed.” Since this is the same White House that insists President Biden’s $3.5 trillion stimulus plan will cost the American public “zero dollar,” we’d better take the Washington Post’s advice  to “consciously lower our expectations” of the Biden administration rather than expecting it to “build back better.” 

Truth be told, rising inflation and the supply chain shortage result from failed public policies advocated for and implemented by the same elites who lectured us to be happy with our “high class” problems. 

Inflation is caused by excessive money supply in the system resulting from both the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary policy and the government’s spending and economic stimulus. We, as a nation, are already more than $28 trillion in debt. Yet, the Biden administration and the Democrats in Congress are pushing to spend another $3.5 trillion to “build back better.” Even former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned such stimulus could “set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” 

The culprit of current supply chain disruptions is a persistent labor shortage caused by poor government policies. According to economist Richard M. Salsman, the labor shortage has been “both mandated (by shutdowns of “nonessential” businesses) and subsidized (with lucrative and extended “jobless benefits”), which makes it difficult for many businesses to attract and hire labor of sufficient quantity, quality, reliability, and affordability.” Without workers to unload ships of goods at ports and without truck drivers to deliver those goods, consumers end up staring at empty shelves at stores.

But don’t expect liberal elites to take responsibility for such policy failures. Those in charge have demonstrated time and again that they will neither listen nor learn. Instead, they will double down on failed policies and dress American people down as if we are spoiled and ungrateful children. The only high-class problem Americans face is that those liberal elites in charge are ignorant, stubborn, and above all, indifferent to ordinary American people’s daily struggles.