NEW YORK, NY Feb. 17 (DPI) – A large number of NYT readers agreed with columnist Binyamin Appelbaum’s assertion that “this isn’t the 70s” and inflation isn’t a threat for the foreseeable future.

Most readers in fact took the view that Democratic control in Washington will foster more deficit spending, and offset a pandemic-induced economic contraction. Virtually all the most popular comments reflected that view:

To no one’s surprise, now that Democrats are in control, Republicans suddenly are deficit hawks crying to the high heavens about the coming inflation which will be caused by all the socialist, Democrat spending. Although, I too would like to see some improvements such as lowering the eligibility for direct payments to something like $100K income for a couple, I agree with President Biden (how refreshing it is not to say President Trump) that we need to go big to be certain that enough is being done.

Still, a few voices pointed out that inflation is lurking in many areas of the economy:

Gee, Mr. Appelbaum, have you looked at the housing market recently? Or visited the grocery store? Looks an awful lot like rapid price rises to me. But what do I know? no Ph.D. in economics here.

Inflation WILL kick up; when more dollars are chasing less supply inflation is inevitable. But we have plenty of room for more inflation, and higher interest rates would be a good thing. We need to rescue the economy from the mess trump and republicans left us this time. Here is an idea: if we truly care about our economy and keeping a lid on inflation than never again let republicans govern; they only make a mess of things.

I am 100% behind the Biden efforts to get money to those who need it. This is an urgent situation and needs to be done. But I also don’t believe it’s accurate to say that we have had low inflation. We live in a severley distorted economy that hands free trillions out to banks, heavily subsidizes farmers which keeps food prices low, and generally encourages money to flow from struggling people who will spend it, to the top earners. When your paycheck has been stagnant or even falling over the last ten years, your standard of living is in decline when measured against the rest of the society. And to say that there hasn’t been inflation in higher education and health care is just plain incorrect.