By basing their midterm pitch around “affordability,” Democrats are confidently demanding the keys to the car they just crashed.
At last week’s State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump seemed almost impressed by the sheer chutzpah of this strategy.
“Now, the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word ‘affordability’ … knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure,” Trump said. “Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them.”
He’s right.
Anything Democrats have to say about “affordability” should come in the form of an apology.
As in, “We’re sorry for making life unaffordable by presiding over a 22% increase in food prices, a 31% increase in gas prices, and a 115% increase in home prices.”
Or, “We’re sorry for letting in an unprecedented deluge of illegal immigrants who drove up rents and depressed American wages.”
Or, “We’re sorry for handing antitrust enforcement to a left-wing maniac like Lina Khan, who tried to destroy Costco and Wal-Mart by criminalizing bulk discounts that save Americans money.”
Or even, “We’re sorry for voting to raise taxes on millions of families by cutting the standard deduction and the child tax credit in half.”
Trump, on the other hand, has plenty to boast about on the affordability front.
He’s protected Americans’ purchasing power by keeping inflation under control. Under Biden, inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.1% and was costing the typical American family $17,000 a year by the end of his term in office. Inflation has remained at 3% or lower since Trump returned to office.
Trump has also made American life more affordable by closing the southern border, deporting nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants, and convincing another 2.2 million to leave voluntarily.
Any Econ 101 student could have predicted the results. Fewer illegals equals less demand for housing equals lower rents. The Los Angeles Times admitted in late January that “communities targeted by immigration officers … saw a jump in vacancies,” helping drive rents down to a four-year low.
Also Econ 101: fewer illegals equals decreased labor supply equals higher wages. And sure enough, real wages rose 1.2% year-over-year in January, outpacing inflation by around $1,400.
Trump’s new antitrust team has ended Khan’s socialist crusade against successful companies that help Americans save money. Over the past year, the Federal Trade Commission has dropped most of her flagship lawsuits. The only big one left, FTC v. Southern Glazer, which Trump FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson hates and strongly dissented against, invented a new interpretation of a disused law to punish the company for offering discounts on bulk purchases.
Thanks to Trump, this lawsuit is unlikely to ever see the inside of a courtroom, but if Khan had her way, she’d have wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars prosecuting this case. And if (God forbid) she’d won, Americans would be forced to pay higher prices at the country’s largest and most popular retailers.
And when it comes to taxes, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill didn’t just lock in the savings Americans had enjoyed since the enactment of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It built on them by slashing rates even further, eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, adding another $200 per kid to the child tax credit, and making interest on loans for American-made cars tax deductible. Not one Democrat voted for it.
Even Democrats’ best “affordability” argument — the expiration of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies — falls apart under scrutiny. It’s true that the expiration has increased health insurance premiums for millions of American families. It’s also true that Republicans were ready to cut a deal to restore those subsidies. Democrats walked away from the table over their demand for taxpayer-funded abortions. That’s right: Democrats would rather push families toward financial ruin than risk upsetting the radical activist groups they actually represent.
Democrats spent the Biden years undermining affordability, then gaslighting Americans when they complained. They’ve spent the past year opposing any remedy to their own failures. Even if they’ve experienced a sudden conversion and actually care about the cost of living now, they’ve lost the right to lecture anyone else about it.
It’s nice to see the town whore in church. That doesn’t mean she gets to preach the sermon.
Ken Blackwell is a chair at the American First Policy Institute, a Board of Directors member for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and a Senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council. He is a former member of the Trump transition team, Cincinnati mayor, and Ohio Treasurer and Secretary of State.
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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