WASHINGTON (AP) — Even President Joe Biden has some regrets about the name of the Inflation Reduction Act: As the giant law turns 1 on Wednesday, it’s increasingly clear that immediately curbing prices wasn’t the point.
While price increases have cooled over the past year — the inflation rate has dropped from 9% to 3.2% — most economists say little to none of the drop came from the law.
“I can’t think of any mechanism by which it would have brought down inflation to date,” said Harvard University economist Jason Furman, who added that the law could eventually help to lower electricity bills.
Alex Arnon, an economic and budget analyst for the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, offers a similar assessment.
“We can say with pretty strong confidence that it was mostly other factors that have brought inflation down,’’ he said. “The IRA has just not been a significant factor.’’
That shouldn’t come as a surprise.
When the Inflation Reduction Act was proposed, the Congressional Budget Office said its impact on inflation would be “negligible.”
So why the name? It may ultimately help to hold down prices in the future — and it fit the politics of the moment.
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Source: apnews.com
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