It Would Take Big Moves To Tackle Big Inflation. Don't Look To Congress For That.

In July 1946, faced with surging post-war inflation as consumers rushed to buy all the goods they couldn’t during World War II, President Harry Truman got a memo from Federal Reserve Chairman Marriner Eccles with possible solutions.

Cut government spending at federal, state and local levels; raise taxes; and cut off credit extended by federal agencies, Eccles suggested. “I am aware that the program here proposed is drastic and difficult to carry out,” he wrote, in an understatement.

Almost 80 years later, Washington confronts a similar burst of inflation. And...