Journal Writing Project The true cost of inflation

By Nicholas Weist

Inflation is a complex problem the leaders of the United States are ignoring. This is primarily caused by the United States Congress not needing to balance its books, while the rest of the United States must balance its books. Now, Inflation is not an easy problem to solve, as the United States has been struggling with it since its founding, but the increased government spending, due to COVID-19 and various stimulus bills is causing the United States’ inflation to skyrocket. The current high inflation is affecting all of the United States citizens as college funds, life savings, and retirement funds diminish. If the United States continues to spend and spend, it gets closer and closer to the inevitable, an economic crash.

Now, this is all a very high-level approach to inflation as other factors cause inflation like market power, demand-pull, and asset boom. However, all of these other factors generally cause safe amounts of inflation while the United States Congress is the exact opposite and exponentially increasing inflation as they continue to spend trillions of dollars. According to an article from the United States Joint Economic Committee, “The inflation is rising at the fastest pace since the early 1900s.” Both State Representative Greg Davis and financial advisor with over seven years of experience, Brandon Scheevel, agree that the United States has entered into a recession. This is based upon many factors including rising minimum wage, unions, the high cost to manufacture in the United States, in addition to the high government spending. John T. Harvey, a professor, and American economist stated, “Inflation never affects everyone equally.” This is very true as those with smaller incomes often feel the constraints of high inflation much more than those with higher incomes.

According to the United States debt clock as of December 12, 2022, the United States is over $31 trillion in debt. Brandon Scheevel believes that the United States could pay off the debt in the next 50 years if they stopped borrowing money. However, realistically, with the current trajectory of the United States, it is unlikely that the country will pay off its debts. In the Bible, Prov 22:7b states that “the borrower is the slave to the lender.” This is very true even today, as if China called off the United States’ debts it would absolutely cripple the United States. The U.S. doesn’t have the money to pay what it owes; instead it continuously prints more and more money from the U.S. Treasury, causing inflation as Congress is artificially increasing the money supply. The United States doesn’t have any surplus from taxes each year. In fact, the United States goes into debt more and more each year, as the taxes from its citizens don’t even begin to break even on what the country spends each year. If we want this problem solved, the citizens of the United States need to get the proper leadership in charge of their country. The United States is on a very dangerous path and the writer of this article believes that if the United States is not careful, it could result in the collapse of the country and the end of the Great American Experiment.

Nicholas Weist is a student at Fillmore Central High School. He is one of 17 area students participating in the Journal Writing Project, now in its 24th year.