Add to that the corporate tax cuts a few years ago which are of a similar scale (though harder to account for), and didn't even have the excuse of pandemic to s

Add to that the corporate tax cuts a few years ago which are of a similar scale (though harder to account for), and didn't even have the excuse of pandemic to support it. I do think that there's a bit much teeth gnashing and blame flinging going around in any case - a 10% inflation for 1 year after years of low inflation isn't the end of the world - if it stays at that. And some of this was almost inevitable given all the shocks of the past few years - how realistic was it that there wasn't going to be some economic hit down the line? It seems rather plausible that earlier, higher rate raises might well have caused a recession; and had the pandemic exit played out only slightly differently and the fed raised rates earlier - we might be making the opposite complaint now. Even now, it's not like higher interest rates won't cause damage. And to the extent that some of the inflation is due to supply shocks, raising interest rates won't even do as much as you'd like, all while causing more damage than is ideal. By contrast, it's worth noting that the eurozone interest is still at -0.50%, and they're talking of months to even return to 0. The challenges may not be identical, but it's no coincidence they've not rushed to raise rates so far either.