Roth: Senator Warren is pounding companies over inflation. She should be censuring herself.

Politicians like to pretend they are “for the little guy.” Democrats, especially progressive Democrats, doubly so. Which is why it should come as no surprise that Senator Elizabeth Warren is once again trying to find a way to blame companies for inflation. This time it comes in the form of a bill asking companies to explain why they are increasing prices.

This is the worst kind of dishonest deflection. If she wants to censure and hold accountable anyone for inflation, it should be herself, along with her colleagues and the agency they give a mandate to, the Federal Reserve.

The rampant inflation we are experiencing is largely due to policy decisions, period. It results from monetary and fiscal policy that “printed” trillions of dollars out of thin air and put it into an economy that was substantially supply-constrained. Moreover, the economy itself was supply-constrained due in large part to the policy decisions made over the past two-plus years by government at all levels.

Elizabeth Warren in 2020, alongside the majority of her colleagues, voted for trillions of dollars in COVID “relief” spending. She didn’t push to rein in the Federal Reserve and its printing of trillions and suppression of interest rates after the stock market hit all-time highs in June 2020; in fact, the Fed ran with that policy until just a couple of months ago.

Again, in 2021, with the Biden administration now at the helm, Warren and a majority of her colleagues voted for what stoked an already kindling fire — the “American Rescue Plan.” Despite the economy being primed for reopening across the country and vaccines rolling out, and despite the pleas from many people who understood the impact of doing so, she and her colleagues supported Biden in throwing another $1.9 trillion in to the already heating-up, supply-constrained economy.

This has caused rampant inflation, which hit a 40-year high before Putin got near invading Ukraine. That, of course, exacerbated gas prices and other energy costs, which wouldn’t have been the issue if Warren and her Democratic colleagues hadn’t been railing against fossil fuels for years.

But instead of having a shred of honesty, Warren wants to ensure this “crisis doesn’t go to waste” in trying to pin this on corporations. She blames them for inflation, saying they are being greedy, as if only in the past year or so, they decided to pursue greed as a strategy.

In fact, many companies are having a hard time keeping up with inflation themselves — even the biggest companies that have been consistently favored by government policy. This week, Walmart and Target stocks have been pummeled in the market, losing around $65 billion in market capitalization over two days, because of the impact on their business from inflation. As Yahoo Finance reported, “Walmart and Target both saw serious margin pressure as inflation in the supply chain bore down on financial statements. The discounters were caught flat-footed in not raising prices fast enough to offset inflation's ugly tentacles.”

Warren and other members of the political class always want to pass the buck, but the buck should stop with them. They have added trillions upon trillions of dollars to our national debt. They have made policy that has destroyed the value of your savings. They have put up barriers to wealth creation. There is no other entity that has destroyed the living standard for the average American more than the U.S. government.

Warren and her colleagues need to stop blaming corporations and take a hard look in the mirror. And the rest of us need to start demanding some real accountability.