LETTER: Trump largely to blame for inflation

In his Tuesday letter to the editor, Nicholas Gartner states, “When Joe Biden was inaugurated, inflation was close to 1.5 percent. By his second year in office, his reckless spending had driven inflation to 9 percent.” What he ignores is the fact that the first 10 months of the Biden administration’s first year, as with all incoming new administrations, were being operated under the previous administration’s (Donald Trump) budget. Therefore, assuming spending has everything to do with inflation and totally discounting the havoc wreaked on the economy by Mr. Trump’s inept handling of the pandemic, at least 80 percent of the blame belongs to Mr. Trump.