Think back to last summer when Joe Biden’s administration was crowing, “The cost of a 4th of July cookout in 2021 is down $0.16 from last year.” That was when inflation was still just “transitory.” Yesterday, as every American was paying through the nose for burgers and hot dogs on Memorial Day, even Biden was so painfully aware that inflation’s here for the long haul that his handlers wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal to tell us why he’s doing a great job and will clean up this mess.

The essay began with the usual lies. Biden blamed Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump for his woes, while taking credit for the fact that the economy was already recovering from the government’s COVID shutdowns — though he claims “the recovery had stalled” when he took office. In fact, he went on, “The U.S. is in a better economic position than almost any other country,” and he gave several reasons why we should all just be more thankful for his outstanding stewardship.

Reality is, of course, far more inconvenient.

The first clue that the economy is in rough shape and everyone is feeling it is the very existence of this op-ed. Does anyone think Biden would have taken to the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal to wave his hands up and down while yelling “everything is fine” if it was really fine?

So, to his plan. “I ran for president because I was tired of the so-called trickle-down economy,” he wrote. “We now have a chance to build on a historic recovery with an economy that works for working families. The most important thing we can do now to transition from rapid recovery to stable, steady growth is to bring inflation down. That is why I have made tackling inflation my top economic priority.”

The pre-COVID economic picture was one of a roaring engine of American growth. Wages were up, unemployment was at historic lows, and working families were thriving. Biden acts as if the opposite was the case, all while he has created conditions in which the vast majority of Americans are being squeezed by inflation and wages that aren’t keeping up.

And the only reason inflation is his “top economic priority” — quite the contrast from last summer’s repeated utter denial that it was even a problem — is that the polling tells him to care.

Biden’s plan has three points: It’s the Federal Reserve’s job, “we need to take every practical step to make things more affordable,” and “keep reducing the federal deficit.”

[Pause for hysterical laughter here.]

The Fed: He mentions having “appointed highly qualified people from both parties to lead that institution.” Both parties, eh? Back in March, we noted the truth: Among the 780 economists across the entire Federal Reserve System, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 10 to one. On the Board of Governors, that ratio is an appalling 48.5 to one. The Democrats running the Fed bear a huge part of the blame for the current mess, and Biden wants you to believe they can lead us out of it.

The cost of stuff: Team Biden waxes eloquent for two long paragraphs about energy and supply chains and so forth, but it boils down to meaningless bromides. He might as well have saved time and channeled a little Kamala Harris: We need to lower costs by lowering costs, so I’ve told companies to lower their costs and they tell me that my plan will lower costs.

Of course, everything he’s done over the last 16 months has raised costs.

Reducing the deficit: His “keep reducing” boast is, as we have noted previously, an accident of timing. Biden took office after most COVID spending had already been approved. After tacking on an additional $1.9 trillion to that, the deficit has “gone down” since the day after that spending. Not that he wanted it to, mind you. Remember, he tried to shove through his Build Back Better boondoggle last fall. He can lie about it costing “zero dollars” all he wants, but that would have added trillions to the national debt this year and every year going forward.

Biden also talks out of both sides of his mouth on revenue. He takes credit for record federal revenue this year because “my economic policies powered a rapid recovery.” But while current tax rates yield record revenue, he also tacitly blames the 2017 Republican tax cuts for benefiting only the wealthy. He then insists on punitive tax hikes based on envy — tax hikes that would hamper economic growth and reduce the very source of revenue he touts.

Since Biden launched “the most robust recovery in modern history,” Americans are paying more for everything and in many cases bringing home less of it, which hurts lower-income folks the most. Unemployment is low again, but worker shortages mean many summer attractions are closed — which might be just fine since many Americans are scrapping vacation plans since they can’t afford the gas. The stock market is tanking, robbing millions of their retirement savings. Fears are growing of a recession after GDP declined in the first quarter.

But Biden still wants you to think he’s doing an amazing job.