Dems stuck in spin cycle as inflation slowly ruins everything

As the House draws closer to a vote on the bill, the White House and Democratic lawmakers have blasted out press releases and tweets claiming the bill—which aims to make expensive services like health care and childcare much cheaper, plus extend a monthly cash benefit to families—will ease the pain of inflation.

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This assertion largely rests on a White House-approved letter written by 17 Nobel Prize-winning economists saying so, a credential that’s been repeated so many times that it’s becoming the butt of jokes on Capitol Hill.

“So you have 17 Nobel Prize-winning economists saying it’s OK—people pumping their gas don’t care,” one House Democratic aide told The Daily Beast. “They don’t care what Jack Lew and Robert Reich say.”…

Privately, some Democrats have a blunter assessment of the persuasiveness of the new inflation spin. Some worry that, regardless of the White House carefully casting Build Back Better as an anti-inflationary measure, connecting the two during an inflation crisis will necessarily invite questions about the bill’s impact in the short-term.

It’s a “huge risk” to sell Build Back Better as an anti-inflationary measure at all, a source close to the White House told The Daily Beast. After passage, inflation could easily persist, and Democrats facing tough reelections in 2022 could be vulnerable to GOP attacks that they sold a false bill of goods.

“I think we’re going to faceplant on it,” this source said.

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