A conservative advocacy group funded by Charles Koch has launched an ambitious new advertising campaign, claiming that high inflation is the result of onerous government regulations.
By its own account, Americans For Prosperity is a group aspiring “to advocate for policies that cut red tape and increase opportunity, put the brakes on government overspending, and get the economy working for hard workers.” Founded in 2004 after a schism in the Citizens for a Sound Economy, Americans For Prosperity was funded from the beginning by the Koch brothers, libertarian captains of industry whose economic power and political spending have drawn criticism from progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders.
While Americans For Prosperity maintain that the group’s actions are not directed by the Koch family, they have certainly benefitted from the donations of Charles Koch and the late David Koch, which have allowed them to become a nationwide force in the battle to win public opinion. The group received widespread attention for their role in the 2010 Tea Party movement, a grassroots conservative effort, which shaped that year’s midterm elections and the subsequent discourse about government spending.
“Instead of empowering entrepreneurs, business owners, and innovators to design solutions that make household goods and commodities more affordable and abundant, Washington continues to take an increasingly top-down approach,” said the group in a statement.
“The trillions of dollars in new spending that members of both parties have approved in recent years—coupled with antiquated regulations that stifle energy supply and economic growth—have produced nearly eight percent inflation, a level not seen in four decades.”
In order to address inflation, the campaign highlights three policy proposals: “Unleash energy abundance,” “[e]nd wasteful spending,” and “[c]ut the red tape that keeps prices high”—all of which the organization argues would mitigate price inflation.
The most recent Consumer Price Index report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that inflation had reached 7.9 percent in the year ending in February, constituting the highest annual rate of inflation in over forty years. These figures are all but guaranteed to rise in March, as fuel scarcity triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in double-digit percentage increases in the cost of oil and natural gas in the United States.
