NEW YORK, NY Sept. 7 (DPI) – Wall Street indexes weakened today amid concerns about the decelerating US economy, but there’s a new twist to the prevailing economic narrative: Readers no longer believe Covid and its variants are themselves responsible for the sudden slowdown.

“I saw hundreds of thousands of (maskless) people in football stadiums this weekend. Don’t blame Covid,” opined a WSJ reader this afternoon whose post was the post popular of more than 500. “Blame the policies that are running dry. You can only pay your way through the problem for so long, at some point you have to fix it.”

The second most popular comment: “The real problem is people refusing to get vaccinated.” And the third: “I’m not sure COVID is still a reliable scapegoat.  More likely, it’s uncertainty over inflation and out-of-control government spending that has people skittish.”

The key issue that government seems to downplay, and readers can’t escape, is inflation and pending tax hikes. Other popular comments:

I was looking to travel during the Labor Day weekend until I did the math.  After checking around I found that the cost for three nights away (for two) was up to about $2400.  That includes lodging, meals, entertainment, and gas.  This same trip last year only cost me $1500.  In the end, it wasn’t Covid that kept me home.  It was the massive inflation.

We should expect a slowdown.  Since Biden has made it clear that much higher tax rates are looming, many projects that were viable at lower tax rates are no longer viable at the expected higher tax rates.  So investors cut back on investments, businesses hire less people, etc.  It is simple economics like this that Democrats don’t understand or get.  Perhaps they should get educated.