GOP nominee sparks confusion by blaming Biden for children drinking water instead of juice

Inflation and gas prices tied to bigger global issues, experts say

A Republican running for Nevada’s US Senate seat is blaming the Biden administration for forcing a mother buy water instead of juice for her children.

“There was a mom the other day that said she had to stop buying juice for her children and they had to switch to water to go to school,” Adam Laxalt, the former attorney general of Nevada, told Fox News on Friday. “These are the decisions that Nevada families are making thanks to all this reckless spending and these terrible energy policies.”

He also hammered the Democratic spending package, the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed in August.

“That bill did not reduce inflation,” Mr Laxalt continued. “It took things in the other direction, so people are really really struggling here.”

The GOP candidate has made attacks on Joe Biden and the Democrats over gas prices and inflation a major part of his campaign, at one point even featuring a person dressed up as a giant, unhappy gas can in a campaign video.

These claims aren’t backed up by the evidence, experts say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded the IRA would have a “negligible” impact on inflation, while a University of Pennsylvania analysis found the bill’s “impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

The Nevada candidate is also likely overstating Mr Biden’s hand in causing high gas prices.

The beginning of the coronavirus pandemic drove a massive drop in demand, resulting in an eventual drop in supply and new oil investment. As demand picked back up, it began outstripping supply, and OPEC nations committed to limiting the oil supply, enjoying high gas prices.

“Covid changed the game, not President Biden,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, which tracks gasoline prices, told NPR. “U.S. oil production fell in the last eight months of President Trump’s tenure. Is that his fault? No.”

As for inflation more broadly, the wide-ranging impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and supply chain issues have caused inflation in nearly every US economy, according to the Economic Policy Institute.