Inflation since April 2021 was 8.3%. . .
We all saw that headline a few weeks back, and I know that we were all feeling it before we read it. My grocery bill has gone up $100 a week, my hope of buying a new car this year is gone, and don’t get me started on gas prices – you could read my column from last month in the Business Journal if you want to know how I feel. The questions all of us should be asking are: Why did it get this bad? And more importantly, how do we fix it?

We all learned about Newton’s third law in school, that every action has an equal opposite reaction. Sure, he was talking about physics, but the lesson applies to everyday life, not just the science textbooks. Let’s apply the same basic principle to our economy.

I think many of us have forgotten that money doesn’t grow on trees. Our local, state, and federal representatives seem to think so, but we actually need to have the money to spend it. Just like money doesn’t grow on trees, the amount of money we have doesn’t grow just because we print more of it. Between hazard pay, stimulus checks, minimum wage increases, and rent moratoriums, we have spent all the money we’ve got, and people are at a breaking point.

I agree – we need to make our economy slow inflation, end homelessness, and ensure working families aren’t living paycheck to paycheck just to buy $7 a gallon for gas. But that can’t happen by putting even more burdens on the industries that are working for us and expecting higher wages without any...

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