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Not that the BIF has passed, we'll talk about President Joe Biden's next big battle.

This is your Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.

It was all smiles and selfies at the White House yesterday.

The Democrats celebrated passage of the bipartisan infrastructure deal,

but rising voter concern about inflation has cast a shadow over Joe Biden's victory lap.

The White House has tried to frame the president's agenda as a long-term answer to inflation,

but a pair of stories this morning in Politico explain why that's probably wishful thinking.

Politico's Jeff Greenfield lays out how inflation has kneecapped past presidents again and

again, and they've been unable to do anything about it.

Quote, presidents have almost no power to ease the pain of inflation, and the voting public

cuts presidents no slack at all because of that impotence.

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson tried to job-own

companies and unions to hold down wage and price increases, but to no avail. Richard Nixon

imposed a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, inflation nevertheless spiraled to 11% by mid-1974.

Gerald Ford tried to address double-digit inflation with pep rallies and field good rhetoric,

calling for farmers to plant more crops or vowing to prosecute any price fixing. It didn't work.

And Jimmy Carter's attempt to lower prices by appointing a Fed chairman who led a historic tightening

of money supply led to quote a recession more severe than any since the Great Depression.

Economics reporter Megan Kassela reports this morning that inflation is shaping up to be the wedge issue of the midterms.

Republicans are having a heyday with Democrats claim that spending trillions of taxpayer dollars will help stabilize the price of gasoline and consumer goods.

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