For many families in Joe Biden’s America, going on vacation this summer means going for broke — literally.
This summer, with lockdowns in tatters and everything open that opens, vacation planning has been going on at a record pace, according to Bloomberg.
“Summer 2022 will be the busiest travel season ever,” Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern told the outlet.
Getting there is no longer half the fun; in fact, it is a substantial portion of the pain.
The average price for a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. hit a new record high of $4.483 on Monday, according to AAA. A year ago, it was $3.042 on average. That is an increase of 47 percent.
And that’s not all.
The travel site Hopper.com says airfare is up 3 percent over last year and hotel rates are 20 percent higher than a year ago, according to WFMY-TV.
And for anyone thinking of sending the kids off for a dose of the outdoors, plan to pay more when you can find a vacancy.
Rates for summer camps are up 10 percent to 15 percent from a year ago amid strong demand, said Tom Rosenberg, president and CEO of the American Camp Association, according to CNN.
Will you take a long vacation trip this summer?
“Demand is extremely strong for camps as parents are desperate for their kids to be out in nature with their peers and away from tech devices after two years of social distancing,” he said.
So did the Grinch decide to steal summer? Not quite, but inflation has been at work for months, hitting 8.3 percent in April after an ugly 8.5 percent in March — the biggest month-over-month increase since December 1981.
As a result, about seven in 10 Americans are adjusting their vacation plans to address fiscal realities, according to Bankrate.
Motorist Ibrahim Khokhar said he’s not waiting until vacation season to start scrimping, according to The National Desk.
“I’m seeing almost a 25 percent increase in my fill-up price. So, like, before it used to cost me $45. Now it’s like $60, $65,” he said.
Like so many others, Khokhar said he’s now changing some daily habits because of rising prices.
“I’ve started kind of doing the math and how much each mile basically costs me. So it’s like $0.10, $0.15, so it’s like, is it really worth going to hang out with my friends?” he said.
In an Op-Ed for the New York Post, Kevin Williamson said President Biden has found a way to make a bad situation worse.
“When you don’t have any fresh ideas or real principles — and when your long-term goals are limited by the fact that the president, who was born during the Roosevelt administration, isn’t exactly buying any green bananas — then the easiest thing to do is to throw money at every problem,” he wrote. “Throwing money at things is how you make inflation worse.”
“Biden, who was in the Senate in the 1970s, is old enough to remember the word ‘stagflation,’ which is what you get when you have a stagnant economy and inflation at the same time,” Williamson said.
“And it is what you get when you combine the wrong monetary policy with the wrong fiscal policy, the wrong trade policy, the wrong regulatory policy, and the wrong energy policy.
“And that’s how you make inflation worse.”
