The data is crystal clear that the process of disinflation stalled at the end of last year. These are the last six monthly inflation figures since December: 4.1, 4.1, 3.9, 4.1, 4.2, 4.1. The goal is to get down to 2.5. At best, we’re going sideways.

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In Australia today, interest rates are lower than in peer countries, and inflation is higher. This is no coincidence. The RBA thought they could do less and simply achieve a shallower glidepath. But that plan has failed. So rates are going to resume their ascent – at a time when they are falling in other countries.

This takes us to the second driver. On Monday of this week, the federal government began pumping roughly $43 billion of further stimulus into the economy, in addition to the tens of billions pumped in by the states. The degree of wanton fiscal recklessness is unprecedented in my lifetime – at least given the context.

The decisions the federal government took in its last two budgets increased the deficit in the financial year that began on Monday by $20 billion. Along with the $23 billion stage 3 tax cuts, they turned a $15 billion surplus into a $28 billion deficit.

While the RBA is trying – too gently – to ease its foot onto the brake, Australia’s governments are pushing on the accelerator. This leaves the RBA little choice but to stamp down harder lest we hit the wall.

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And we shouldn’t be so naive as to think the two simply cancel out. Indeed, pushed to the limit, either the brakes burn out, or the engine explodes. I have no doubt we would have been in a better place as a nation had both sides simply been more restrained. If eventually we are forced into recession, this will be why.

Now, some have argued that we should simply give up. If a recession is the price we must pay to get inflation under control, then it’s a price not worth paying.

Aside from being clearly wrong (don’t cry for me, Argentina!), this is naive. The RBA’s ultimate objective is price stability. Inflation will return to target. The question is not if it will happen but what it will take to get it there. If a recession is what is necessary to make up for its past mistakes, that’s exactly what the RBA will do.

And those of us who urged the RBA to do more and the government to do less for the past two years were trying to avoid exactly this eventuality. Those who advocated dovish policy in the name of protecting the most vulnerable have, in fact, put them at greater risk.

If we have a recession, it will be on their heads.

Steven Hamilton is assistant professor of economics at George Washington University and visiting fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the ANU.