“Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?” Ronald Reagan asked days before his sweeping 1980 presidential election victory. That simple question looms as a decisive factor in next year’s congressional ballot.
Inflation is now running at its highest in a generation, with a report Wednesday showing that consumer prices surged at a 6.2% annual pace in October. Nearly all economic forecasters expect it to cool in the coming year, but the key question for President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats is how quickly and how much.
