The NPR Politics Podcast - The Economy Is Doing Well By Most Measures—But Inflation Remains A Problem

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

Inflation is particularly potent as a political issue because it touches everyone, but President Biden still rarely addresses the topic substantively in public appearances. How much of an issue will it be in November?And a joint database, designed to prevent voter fraud, lets states track those Americans registered to vote in multiple places. But the program has recently become the target of a far-right disinformation campaign that's already led one state to stop participating.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Scott Detrow, voting reporter Miles Parks, and chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Megan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I just finished today's Wordle puzzle in three tries, and now I have to wait for the next puzzle to be available. This podcast was recorded at... I was a five today, so I'm jealous. It is 12.08 Eastern on Friday, February 11th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, here's the show. Asma, have you wordled yet? I feel like I've been nagging you. I wordle, like, maybe once a week, which is a very probably irregular way to play this game.

When I do play it, I love it, and it is not a big time commitment. But for some reason, I haven't gotten into, like, the daily habit of it. I'm not going to brag, but I'm on a 35-day streak right now. Oh, wow. NBD. So I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. And I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House.

Economics correspondent Scott Horsley is joining us as well. Do you wordle, Scott? I have never wordled. You've never wordled? Oh, wow, Scott. This is one of many cultural trends which I have not yet taken advantage of. So Wordle recently sold for more than a million dollars, which is a good way to pivot to the economy, which we are talking about. You know, in many ways, the economy is very good right now in one high profile way, and that is inflation. The economy is very bad right now, but polls show Americans are mostly focused on the negative and that they're giving President Biden bad marks for how he's handling the economy, which is obviously a big deal in an election year. Scott, you've been covering this for months. Asma, you just finished a really big story looking at this contrast. And let's start with the big picture first before we talk about inflation. There is a lot to be happy about

right now, isn't there? Well, there is, but people aren't very happy. We just got some new data from the University of Michigan showing consumer sentiment has fallen to a decade low. And that's despite some things to be happy about. We had really strong job growth last year, more than six and a half million jobs added. Unemployment has now fallen to 4% from near 15% at the depths of the pandemic. Economic growth last year was the fastest since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. But as you mentioned, the side effect of that rapid growth and the constrained supply has been the highest inflation since, also since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Scott, I would say like we have not seen inflation this high in our lifetimes.

And you hear this from economists, you hear this from Democratic pollsters and analysts. One thing I heard from, you know, sort of longtime economic advisor to multiple Democratic administrations, Larry Summers, was this sense that essentially inflation just hits people more viscerally. It is very public. People see it when they go to the gas pump. And it's just it's different than other economic metrics. I think more unemployment is the difference between a job and not a job for two or three percent of the population. More inflation is higher prices for 100% of the population. And I mean, look, I'm not saying that more unemployment would have been good for people. I think Scott Horsley will very much say that from an economic perspective, that is a bad idea.

But I think that more inflation, just it is something that people viscerally react to. And I hear this, I heard this from a Democratic pollster I talked to, she says that, you know, time and again, in her focus groups and polls, she hears from voters who just feel like wages are not keeping up with the rising cost of living. And maybe that psychologically, because you get a paycheck twice a month, but you buy something that's more expensive every day. And Scott, as we talk about this, it is worth flagging Larry Summers for a while was out there saying, hey, all of this Biden pandemic spending is going to cause inflation. And the

Biden administration didn't want to hear it and kind of dismissed him. Yeah, I mean, we had a tremendous amount of money dumped into the economy, both by the Federal Reserve and by Congress. And that goes back to the Trump administration. Obviously, we had the CARES Act. In the early months of the pandemic, we had another dollop of economic relief passed in the waning days of the Trump administration. But then in the early months of the Biden administration, we did have this $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. And there were people at the Biden administration, we did have this $1.9 trillion American rescue plan. And there were people at the time saying, maybe we don't need all that money going in right now. There's kind of a debate within the economist community about whether we would have had such strong economic growth absent that federal spending.

Former Obama economic advisor Jason Furman says we probably could have done better. I would rather have low unemployment and high inflation than the opposite. I think there were probably things that were better than either of those that a more carefully calibrated economic response would have gotten us to. I think if the recovery plan had been half as large, we'd have almost the same number of jobs now and a lot less inflation. But who knows? You know, for a long time, both the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve saw this high inflation as very much a byproduct of the pandemic. And the expectation was that as the pandemic eased and as supply chains got untangled,

prices would begin to level off. But that's taking a lot longer than we thought. And what we're now seeing is that price hikes are sort of spreading throughout the economy. It's not just automobiles, which are affected by the chip shortage. It's not just lumber. We're seeing basic necessities like rent and electricity and groceries that are costing more. And it's

starting to look like this is going to be a more stubborn and sticky inflation problem that's going to take more work to unwind. Yeah. Certainly not the transitory inflation, which was the phrase the White House kept using for a long time. But Asma, the politics of this, like some of the economic arguments that we're making here make sense, but they're like not quite good political arguments to make, right? How is the Biden White House talking about this and talking about this, this mix of pros and cons to make this argument that that they've been handling the economy well? Well, I would say, Scott, for a long time, as you mentioned, the administration was suggesting that this was transitory, meaning that it would eventually go away. It was short term, though

it was unclear how long term that would be. They have begun to shift their message and they've been pivoting, I would say, for a while now, basically trying to emphasize that they understand that food prices are going up or that they understand gas prices are going up. I think the problem, though, that I've heard from analysts is that one, there needs to be more repetition of that empathy. But secondly, there also needs to be some sense that that they are trying to do something about it. And, you know, I was struck yesterday, I was out with the president, he was in central Virginia. And, you know, I would have expected that on a day when inflation was the headline news, we would have just heard him tackle it more head on, appear to be doing something about it. I recognize there are limitations to what a president can actually do on inflation.

But people want to hear that empathy. People want to hear what he's doing on it. And most of his speech was actually about this build back better agenda, right? And we've talked a lot on this podcast about it. I mean, that by all accounts seems to be fairly dead in the Senate. He mentioned inflation as an aside, but that really is what it felt like, an aside. Look, again, slight digression. Inflation

is up. It's up. And coming from a family, when the price of gas went up, you felt it in a household. You knew it was like it matters. But the fact is that if we are able to do the things I'm talking about here, it'll bring down the cost for average families. And what he was referring to there is, you know, he has these legislative plans that he says will help bring down the cost of health care or bring down the cost of child care. And his argument is, I would say, an objectively accurate argument, which is that there are other ways to raise people's standards of living. I just think the tricky thing is, it is not a particularly politically salient argument to make when really the immediacy people want is somebody who can address the high food prices,

the high gas prices. The administration is taking some short-term steps to address inflation. They're working on transportation networks, for example. They're trying to promote competition in some really highly concentrated industries like meatpack packing. But ultimately, it's the Federal Reserve's job to fight inflation. And here, the administration has said, look, we trust the Fed to do what it needs to do. And we now expect the Fed is going to start raising interest rates as early as next month to crack down on prices. The delicate thing there is if the Fed cracks down too hard, it could really slow economic growth. And that's not good for the Democrats either. One thing I just want to mention in closing is that, you know, I think the challenge for this president is some of the people I talked to for this story

say that inflation is no doubt a concern. It is real. But they ultimately feel like it is kind of like a temperature check or a gauge for how people actually feel about COVID. And so their view is that people are going to remain upset about the economy, no matter how good the unemployment rate is, no matter how, you know, even in some ways they feel like if inflation dropped, even if all of these economic metrics improved, if we are still in a situation where the virus is hanging over us and it's influencing our behavior, they just don't think people are suddenly going to start giving the president really positive approval ratings. And that's a challenge. All right, Mr. Horsley, thanks for joining us. It's always nice to talk to you.

Good to be with you all. So Asma, stick around. We are going to take a quick break. When we come back, you and I are going to talk to Miles Parks about far-right attacks on a database intended to prevent voter fraud. We are back with Miles Parks. Hey, Miles. Hi, Scott. So we're going to talk about ERIC, not the editor of our podcast, but rather the Electronic Registration Information Center. Miles, you have been reporting on this. This is a tool both Democratic and Republican election officials say makes voting

more secure, and yet it is currently under serious attack by conspiracy theorists. A lot to talk about there. Let's start out with, tell us about ERIC. Why does this matter? What is this program? Yeah, so ERIC is this system. I think most people will probably assume that governments were already doing what ERIC set out to do when it was founded in 2012. But basically, it's a data partnership. So you think about all the different states across the country. Each have their own individual voter registration lists. And for a long time, those lists didn't talk to each other at all. And so what Eric did basically is made it a central, secure way where states could join and then have access to other states' lists, which meant that like if you, when you move away, I moved away from Florida a few years ago. I didn't call my old local election official and say, hey, just so you know, I moved to Washington, D.C. Can you take me off the voter list?

You know, I just moved and went about my life and got a driver's license in D.C. I had always wondered about this because I definitely never did that either, and I assume hardly anyone, if anyone, does that. Yeah, and in a lot of cases, that meant that your registration, people would have registrations sometimes active in a bunch of different states. That's not in itself illegal as long as they're not voting ballots at the same election in all of those different states. That's not in itself illegal, as long as they're not voting ballots at the same election in all of those different states. But it meant that our voter rolls without Eric are obviously not completely up to date. So what Eric did basically was set out

to give election officials really targeted data on when a voter has moved. Eric is not only between states. It's also data from the DMV, data from the Social Security Administration, basically trying to solve two problems. One of accessibility, it helps election officials reach out to new voters when they move into their jurisdiction, but they haven't yet registered to vote. And then the other thing is security, it allows election officials to keep their voter rolls up to date when a voter moves away or a voter dies. So Miles, what you were describing does not seem like a particularly controversial mechanism. So can you explain to us how it became fodder for conspiracy theories?

Just look at the list of member states, and I think you can tell how non-controversial this is. This is a list that includes Texas, South Carolina, but also includes Connecticut, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C. Like the most liberal and the most conservative states in the country are a part of this thing. I think which shows you that previously for the first 10 years of its existence, it has not been an issue for anybody. But now over the last couple of weeks and months, the far right, specifically the Gateway Pundit, which is this far right blog, has been targeting it with a bunch of different attacks, all of them kind of alluding to this general idea that Eric is somehow part of a left wing conspiracy, you know, in that same vein of a lot of different election conspiracies that we've heard over the last couple of years. None of these allegations are true. Again, most Republican election officials love this thing. They think it's the best way

for them to prevent voter fraud. And yet, you know, the far right right now has been, you know, pushing on it. But Miles, I want to point out in your reporting that this matters, this Gateway Pundit, you know, effort matters because shortly after it started, Louisiana pulled out of Eric. So like, this is having real world consequences. Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, we don't cover every single time a conspiracy theorist throws spaghetti against the wall, but when it actually leads to voting policy, that really matters. And so we saw Louisiana drop out of this compact kind of quietly a couple weeks ago. And I think the other thing to point out, though, is that Louisiana is

the only state that has dropped out of this so far, but other Republican election officials I've talked to are under pressure from their voters who are consuming this content as well. I talked to the Republican Secretary of State of Alabama, John Merrill, who is a big supporter of former President Trump, but he's also a big supporter of Eric. What Eric does is it helps identify duplicate registrations. It helps identify dual participation in the same election. That's a concern. There's no other way that any state in the union can do that independently of Eric. And so I think the other part of this that we're seeing is right now, a number of these Republican election officials are saying, no, we're not going to listen to these conspiracy theorists. We are not going to drop out of Eric. But a number of candidates, these election denying candidates who we've talked about on the podcast before, have already said as

part of their campaign promises in Arizona, in Alabama, that they would drop out of Eric should they be elected. These are the kind of things on the margins that they could potentially do to make our elections less secure and less efficient. Miles, I just want you to help me, though, understand still, like, what is the logic behind attacking this ERIC program? Because to the very point we've heard from you, it seems like it is a mechanism to prevent voter fraud. So I still don't understand

what is their gripe with the system. I think that's it's really hard to get to the answer to that question. I think when I've talked to experts about it, there's no legitimate policy argument against Eric. But I think if you zoom out, and it's helpful to think about things that like former President Trump and his supporters have said about the election, which is that we need to have a bigger hand in how our elections are administered and how our votes are counted, right? And so to be able to justify that level of infiltration to the voting system or gaining more of a hand in controlling the voting system, you need problems in the elections to be happening. 2020, by all accounts, Republican Democrats

was one of the best administered elections that we've ever had. And so that would not justify that level of kind of overhaul of elections. So I think what experts see this as is an effort to justify some sort of election takeover, to be frank. And I think there's all these examples of people who say they're in favor of election integrity, but in reality are in favor of things that would just make our elections run worse. Which is why we are glad you are obsessively covering this issue full time, Miles. It's going to be a busy year slash couple years. Yeah. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we will end the show like we do every Friday

with Can't Let It Go. We are back. It is time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, which is the part of the show where we talk about things from the week we cannot stop talking about, politics or otherwise.

Though during an Olympic window, when Asma and I are on the podcast, it is usually just one topic, and that is the case for me, at least. Asma, our love for the Olympics knows no bounds. You came over the other day to watch the halfpipe and figure skating, which was a fun time. I'm jealous. But I think the one part about it that I'm particularly enjoying, other than the fact that we have a double Olympics right now,

between the summer to the winter with the delayed summer is how well the older millennials or the millennials as we continually try to call them due to Will Smith, a cultural icon to people our age. Yeah. Like, I'm so proud of them. This is like the last gasp for people in their mid 30s. Lindsay Jacob Ellis coming back from 2006 to win the gold medal. Sean White just being there.

Even Jessie Diggins. She's like a borderline millennial. She's 30 with the bronze in the cross country. Us elderly old millennials are doing so well, and I'm just really proud of them. I know. I do feel great for our generation. Also, to be blunt, it makes me feel really vindicated that I'm like, wow, we can still move our bodies. We collectively, right? Because I feel like I'm in the same batch as these Olympians.

Yeah. I feel like winter, especially the winter sports are even harder for the older millennials. I know. I mean, I don't know if there's data on this, but I just, when I'm watching like downhill skiing, I'm just thinking about these people's knees and just like how, how, like how many years of this, I mean, it makes sense that as you would get into your late 30s, a lot of these sports would be a lot harder. My wife was saying, she's like, you know, the Summer Olympics is just like, okay, somebody ran faster than you, but the Winter Olympics are so extreme. It's like you're 30 feet in the air.

There's just so much more of a downside if you don't do well than in the Summer Olympics, with a few exceptions. Yeah, yeah. What's your favorite Olympic sport, Asma? Figure skating, which is why I was so bummed. They put it so late at night nowadays with the time change. But no, I've always loved figure skating. Miles, what other than the Olympics can you not let go of?

Well, so mine is still sports adjacent because we do have the Super Bowl coming up this weekend. But I feel like the thing I've been thinking a lot about the last couple weeks, and I feel like there's been a lot of pieces written that I've been kind of voraciously consuming. Every single story on this topic is sports betting and how in the last year we basically as a society, American society, just decided that we were just going to unleash the floodgates.

And there's commercials every – I feel like you can't turn on the tv without seeing commercials and i was just reading that just from the the time in the last super bowl to this current super bowl 45 million more people in the u.s can legally gamble on sports just between those two super bowls and so there's expected to be like seven billion dollars wagered legally in america on the Super Bowl on Sunday. And I just like, I don't know, that amount of money blows my mind. The societal implications of like, you know, something like 1% of America struggles with

gambling addiction. And we're just like legalizing this thing. We're not really talking about it. No, that is so interesting. I don't understand fully why it is allowed in all these states if you cannot legally gamble, say, with a slot machine in every state. Great public policy question, Asma. Yeah, I mean, I do feel like it's going to be weird. Like at the Super Bowl parties this year, there's going to be times I think at different places where I feel like it's very possible I could be at the Super Bowl party watching.

And like some guy next to me is like having a doesn't't seem to care about either team but it's having outsized emotional reactions then you just like find out they have like eight thousand dollars on the Rams for no reason like I feel like that sort of moment is going to happen a lot this year which will be kind of odd okay so do you guys do you guys gamble in sports though do either one you guys this is a very personal question sorry to put you on the spot. I have gambled. I have placed under 10 sports bets. I've not used any of the apps, and I've lost every winning ticket.

Oh, my gosh. Miles, that's not a good track record. No, exactly. That's why I'm almost happy about that because it hasn't reinforced my wanting to do it. You're like, therefore, I'm not going to get addicted. Remember when we were in Nevada covering the caucuses, I placed a futures bet that the Lakers would win the championship that year. And they won. I was with you. I told you to hold on to the ticket, Miles.

And you didn't? I didn't. I don't know where it is. Oh, man. And that would have been the one that you won, actually. Yeah. So, yes, I've done it. Have I made money on it? No. Even the winning bets have lost money for me. What can't you let go of, Asma?

Okay. So there was this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that you all might have seen yesterday that started making the rounds. Oh, you already know what I'm talking about. It's called, Here's Why I'll Be Keeping My Shoes On in Your Shoeless Home. So I have a lot of thoughts about this. Full disclosure, we are a shoeless home, the Collin household. So I certainly have a perspective

when I'm speaking about this story. That being said, I did read the whole piece. I did not share it on Twitter because to be blunt, I just felt like she was writing this piece just to rile people up. So here I am talking about it. So maybe I succumbed to it. But it just struck me as like this moment in which it feels like every few weeks on this podcast, we are talking about just where we are in terms of like civic conversation in the country.

The social contract is all crumbling down. And this piece to me just epitomized like what is wrong with our society. Because, look, if you want to wear shoes in your house, you know, wear them. And if I don't want to wear them in my house, like I don't have to wear them. why this is such a big deal because ultimately it just struck me as people being unable to respect boundaries and normal decorum and politeness. If you want to come over and I offer you a glass of water and you're like,

no trick, I want Perrier. That's rude. I just feel like you deal with what you are being offered. Wait, but what's the argument? What's her argument again? Like, why doesn't she want to take off her shoes? Is there some, like, medical issue or something? I think she's trying to, A, be contrarian,

and B, it just, like, to me, epitomizes this feeling of, like, why the social contract has broken down, right? Like, what is wrong with our country right now? And maybe I'm, like, overanalyzing this. It's just an op-ed about shoes. Oh, it's like no question a power move. Exactly, right? Anyhow, my point is the piece was meant to rile people up,

and clearly I succumbed to it even though I tried not to. Yeah, they win. But it just struck me as, like, I don't know. It felt, and maybe I'm, like, nostalgic, like my grandma for these old times. She'd be like, we used to be like this. And I'm like, yeah, I do. I do feel like we used to be a society where like, if you invite people over to your home, people just kind of go with the flow of what you have in your own house rules, right?

Yes. Okay. Thank you for affirming that. Basically, if you come over to my house, please do remove your shoes. The world needs content, Asma, all right? I guess so, right? Those op-ed pages are getting kind of slim, huh? All right, so Miles, when you have your Super Bowl party and everyone is making prop bets

in the kitchen, shoes off is my takeaway from this. Fair enough, fair enough. All right, that is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Mathani from this. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. That is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Muthani Mathuri. Our editors are Eric McDaniel and Krishnadev Kalamur.

Our producers are Alexi Shabittle and Elena Moore. And thanks to Brandon Carter as well. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid.

I also cover the White House. And I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.