Inflation is rising. Democrats must avoid making it worse.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), a crucial vote Democrats must get to advance their “reconciliation” bill, has said that he fears large new federal spending programs would stoke inflation. Advocates for the bill have been able to respond, reasonably, that it is not stimulus legislation, in which the government injects borrowed money, much of it from abroad, into the economy to boost flagging demand. Rather, it is a set of structural social and environmental reform programs that Democrats plan to finance with new taxes and savings from prescription drug negotiations. The goal is to make the country fairer and more efficient in the long term. Harvard economist Jason Furman points out that President Biden’s spending plans would net out to provide essentially no added fiscal stimulus.