AOC claims people are stealing baby formula because the child tax credit expired, which is weird because people have been stealing a ton of formula for the past two years

We all know that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has some wacky economic theories—she calls them "socialism"—but her latest is a real doozy: She believes that a government benefit that expired less than two months ago is responsible for a major crime problem of the past two years:

[Ocasio-Cortez] accused America of ignoring the reasons behind the rise in crime that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Because we run away from substantive discussions about this, we don't want to say some of the things that are obvious, like, Gee, the child-tax credit just ran out, on December 31st, and now people are stealing baby formula," AOC said.

Oh, "now people are stealing baby formula?" It just started now?

That's odd because—and I'm no statistician or anything—but a very quick Google search revealed an epidemic of baby formula theft that had been occurring, you know, well before the child tax credit expired. Examples:

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We could just keep going and going on this list, like the Energizer Bunny.