JAMES CARTER: The Standard Of ‘Are You Better Off?’

In what was arguably the most memorable moment of the sole debate between President Jimmy Carter and Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan famously asked the American people: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Less well known was then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden’s cringe-worthy response.

In a video released by Biden’s 1984 re-election campaign, Biden slammed Reagan, saying: “Now we’ve got candidates running for president saying, ‘Are you better off today than you were yesterday?’ I mean, what kind of standard is that for this country to repair to?”

“What kind of standard is that?” Really? Mr. President, it’s the only standard that ultimately matters. To assert otherwise, as you are fond of saying, is malarkey.

But for the sake of President Biden’s re-election, he had better hope the American people agree with him.

(They don’t.)

No pollster has bothered to ask the American people if they value being better off. Why would they? The answer is obviously a resounding “yes!”

The question then becomes: Do the American people think they are better off under Biden? And who do they trust to make them better off in the years ahead?

Consider the following polls:

• According to an Associated Press report from earlier this year, “just 24% of Americans said they were better off than they were when Biden became president, while 41% said they were worse off and 34% said neither. Majorities also said the country as a whole and the national economy were worse off than when Biden became president.”

• Gallup reports that only 21 percent of Americans are satisfied with “the way things are going in the United States at this time.” That’s further evidence that most Americans don’t believe they are better off.

• A poll conducted this month by the University of Michigan for the Financial Times found that a plurality (45 percent) of voters say they would either be “much” or “somewhat” better off under a second Trump presidency.

This begs the question: Where is the prosperity the country enjoyed under Trump prior to the pandemic?

Biden is learning to his chagrin that bigger government and higher inflation are no substitutes for prosperity.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) currently forecasts a subpar economic growth rate averaging only 1.8 percent annually through 2034. Compare that to the 3.6 percent average real growth rate the U.S. enjoyed from 1947 to 2000!

While the U.S. economy limps along, federal spending under Biden has exploded.

CBO estimated last month that federal outlays will total $6.805 trillion—nearly $216,000 per second—this fiscal year (2024). In February 2021, shortly after Biden assumed office, CBO estimated FY 2024 outlays would total only $5.258 trillion. In other words, the federal government is poised to spend 29.4 percent more this year than CBO anticipated at the start of the Biden administration.

When you are talking about spending trillions of federal dollars annually, a 29.4 percent increase is massive!

This huge, unwarranted and harmful increase in federal outlays is a product of the Biden administration’s extravagant spending policies and the subsequent jump in inflation and interest rates.

Also, recall that inflation stood at only 1.4 percent (year-over-year) when Biden assumed the presidency in January 2021. Since then, the price level has jumped 20.1 percent! That dwarfs the 7.7 percent price level increase that occurred over Trump’s four years in office.

Sen. Biden told the American people 40 years ago that he did not think a president should be judged by whether the country is “better off.” That speaks to why the Biden administration has been such an utter failure.

Following a two-year stint in the White House as an Associate Director of the National Economic Council, James Carter served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Deputy Undersecretary of Labor for President George W. Bush.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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