The Heritage Foundation launched an inflation calculator on Monday to help Americans calculate how much prices have risen on their personal spending, information first obtained by The Daily Caller.
“My InflationAccording to a preview of the website obtained by The Daily Caller, the Heritage Foundation's “Spending Forecast” first asks Americans to select the region of the country they live in before inputting their monthly expenses. Americans can then input a variety of monthly expenses, such as rent, mortgage, car loans and health care, and the calculator will tell them how much their spending would increase under a Biden-Harris administration compared to the Trump administration. (Related: White House, Democrats abandon “Bidenomics” initiative)
“Why are inflation calculators useful now? Because when we get updates on the Consumer Price Index from the government, it's an abstract number. Most people see reports that inflation is going down and can't connect that to the cumulative changes in prices that have happened over the past four years,” Parker Shepherd, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analytics, told the Caller.
“It's a tool that takes the abstract – the intangibles of percentages – and turns them into dollar figures, so you can see something that's tailored to exactly what people are spending. It's not an average bundle like CPI Cost calculates; you get something that's specifically tailored to your spending habits, not how much more it would cost to buy the same good or service,” he added.
On its website, previewed by The Daily Caller, the Heritage Foundation explains that it created the tool to help people understand “how much their government has taken from them” through reckless spending. Users are seeing prices rise because “governments are spending more and printing more money,” the organization wrote on its website.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks during a visit to Sycamore & Oak, a minority-owned retail village that houses other local small businesses, in Washington, DC, on August 4, 2023. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Heritage Foundation's inflation calculator will go live the morning after the first presidential debate between Trump and Harris, in which economic policy — a top issue for voters — was mentioned just once in the first 45 minutes of the debate. (Related article: Trump furious as Kamala and hosts throw bait into the water)
More than a month into the presidential campaign, Vice President Harris wasn't able to release her full policy platform until Monday. She spoke about economic policy before the “Issues” tab was added to her campaign website. (RELATED: 'We've wasted this moment': Washington Post editorial board slams Kamala Harris' economic agenda as 'disappointing')
Harris touted her economic plan in her first and only face-to-face interview with CNN's Dana Bash.
“Well, there are a few things. First and foremost, I would say one of my top priorities is doing what I can to support and strengthen the middle class,” Harris began.
“Day one will be focused on delivering on what I call the Opportunity Economy, and in that regard, I've already put forward some proposals on what we're going to do to lower the prices of everyday goods, what we're going to do to invest in American small businesses, what we're going to invest in families,” the vice president continued when pressed further by Bash.
Bash also questioned why Harris has not implemented any of the economic policies she has introduced in the past, given that she has been in office for the past three years.
“First of all, we had to get our economy going, and we've done that,” the vice president said.
“I'm so proud of the work we did to keep inflation below 3 percent, to cap insulin costs for seniors at $35 a month. Donald Trump said he was going to do all these things, like allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, but he didn't do that. We did,” she continued.
