Letter to the editor: The good ol' days of January 2021

Ah, the good ol’ days.

January 2021: Gasoline averaged $2.67 a gallon in the East and $3.70 a gallon in the West.

Household electricity was 13.09 cents per kilowatt hour.

Eggs cost $1.67 a dozen.

Yep, January 2021. Think everything costs more? Guess what? Even President Biden’s U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) agrees with you. “No joke.”

Biden’s BLS states that from February 2021 to February 2022, gas increased 38%, electricity increased 9% and food increased 7.9%. “That’s not hyperbole.”

Why? What happened in early 2021? Hmmm … well, Biden took the presidency, and after months of reporting “transitory” escalating prices, his administration finally acknowledged inflation.

Biden blames it on the pandemic and Putin. OK, so let’s see.

The pandemic is an easy scapegoat, but it began in March 2020. Per Biden’s BLS, inflation was 1.9% in 2018, 2.3% in 2019, 1.4% in 2020 and 7% in 2021. And although the pandemic began in early 2020 and inflation wasn’t an issue until 2021, Biden blamed it as the primary reason for inflation in his Democratic Caucus Issues Conference speech.

During that same caucus speech, Biden blamed Putin as inflation’s second reason. On Feb. 7, 2022, weeks before Putin invaded Ukraine, AAA stated the average price for a gallon of gas was $3.44, 98 cents more than the previous year. Biden’s closing words to the caucus were “Democrats didn’t cause this problem. Vladimir Putin did.” Blaming Putin for higher prices prior to the invasion is simply nonsense.

Biden blames the pandemic and Putin.

“C’mon, man.”

Mary Rita Turka

Murrysville