LARRY KUDLOW: Voters are saying Biden is part of the problem

In the latest Fox News poll, 90% said inflation is the top voter concern, and when it comes to Joe Biden's handling of the economy, he gets a 35% approval, compared to a 64% disapproval.  

So, in this poll, voters are saying: "Here's the problem, but Mr. Biden is not the solution." In fact, they're saying he's part of the problem. And, by the way, although the overall inflation rate has come down in recent months, the fact remains that since a month after Mr. Biden's inauguration, the Consumer Price Index has gone up over 14% with groceries up nearly 20%.  

Although gas prices have eased recently, in total, energy costs are up 32%. Government bureaucrats can talk about inflation "excluding food and energy," but the reality is food and energy are essential to the cost of living for families all across the country.   

Therefore, it's odd that Mr. Biden refuses to sit down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to talk about lowering federal spending, which is one of the primary causes of high inflation. In fact, Mr. Biden's own Council of Economic Advisers published this chart showing that the 2021 Biden Democratic stimulus package sparked inflation. 

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So, a bunch of bills passed in the last two years, including the misnamed "Inflation Reduction Act," which has recently been re-estimated by Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs to cost $1.2 trillion, roughly three times the administration’s estimates and, of course, Biden’s tax and regulatory increases, including his war against fossil fuels, have suppressed the supply-side — or the production side — of the economy, which is another factor causing high inflation. In fact, you can see how manufacturing has been dropping lately. 

Mr. Biden's latest budget would increase deficits by at least $17 trillion over the next 10 years and would raise taxes on the economy’s most successful and productive entrepreneurs while intensifying his war against small business. Today at a press conference, Speaker Kevin McCarthy sadly had this to say:   

SPEAKER KEVIN MCCARTHY: I sat down with the president Feb. 1. We had a good discussion. He said he wanted to meet further. He actually tweeted out afterwards that he wanted to have further discussions. Apparently, he doesn't want to meet, and I don't understand why. We're very reasonable, responsible.

There you have it. Mr. Biden apparently doesn’t want a second date with the likeable Kevin McCarthy, but they're going to need a second date to hammer out a debt bill, which will include probably a something like a 10-year budget cap that might come to roughly a trillion dollars, a Constitution-backed halt to student loan cancelation, the just-passed H.R. 1, "Lower Energy Costs Act" — which is strongly counter-inflationary — and a renewal of the Bill Clinton-Newt Gingrich work requirements that would bring people off of government benefits and back to the workplace, cutting the budget by maybe $100 billion a year and reducing child poverty.   

What's not to like about that? This is a sensible, reasonable approach that will do what voters clearly want, which is to reduce the cost of living and increase the purchasing power of their paychecks. President Biden says he wants a so-called "clean" bill.   

Well, he's not going to get it. This, by the way, is the Bernie Sanders version of Joe Biden because back in 2011, Joe Biden was the Obama administration's point man for a deal with then-House Speaker John Boehner to install roughly a trillion dollars of spending caps as part of a debt bill.   

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Mr. President, if you did it then, you can do it now. All it takes is another couple of meetings with House Speaker McCarthy. You will enjoy these dates. Maybe a nice dinner, go to a movie, a Diet Coke in the Oval?   

If you remain stubbornly opposed to any sort of compromise deal, voters are saying you're going to make them even unhappier at your economic performance than they already are, and trust me, sir, these folks right now are not happy campers. That's my riff. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the March 30, 2023, edition of "Kudlow."