By Paul Ingrassia | AMAC Contributor
Inflation has been a constant headache all throughout the Biden-Harris years, which have observed everything — from the price of groceries to gasoline to electricity —skyrocket to decades (and by some estimates, even century) highs. While record-setting inflation has been perhaps the most defining hallmark of this miserable era in our politics, Americans are only now beginning to fully grapple with the scope of the harm wrought by “Biden/Kamala-nomics,” which is sure to have a lasting toll on our economy. For example, over the past four years, a $100,000 income is now only worth $83,000 per year – a whopping 17% decrease in value! In just the four-year period in which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have occupied the Oval Office, the dollar has lost 4.3% of its total value per year — and that’s the government’s own, trumped-up numbers. The real costs have been even worse.
Although Biden-Harris administration officials try to patch over these damning figures by claiming that inflation has cooled in recent months, that only tells part of the story. As the old saying goes, a half-truth is often a whole lie. What they fail to remind everyone is that inflation is cumulative – even though the rate might have slowed down ever slightly, its cumulative effect cannot be wished away. And since there hasn’t been deflation, prices remain higher now than they were a year ago — and much higher compared to when President Trump departed office.
As inflation has skyrocketed at home, this reckless administration’s response has been to send the money printers on overdrive. The current administration has used these funds not to invest in domestic businesses, but to fuel the war machine — as Biden’s latest blank check to Zelensky goes to show. While the Ukrainians, Chinese, and Mexicans receive hundreds of millions from American taxpayers, millions of our own citizens still languish in Hurricane-ravaged states like North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia – our government is hardly able to scrap together a measly $750 to help them out. The effects of inflation in America have touched every aspect of day-to-day life: energy prices have quadrupled, car insurance has quintupled, while foodstuffs like coffee and eggs have risen by a staggering seventy percent.
The toll on the American consumer has been the most devastating. Americans now increasingly fear a Weimar Germany or Venezuelan-type situation where inflation, the result of too many dollars chasing too few goods, continues to spiral out of control, forcing either the Federal Reserve to implement dramatic rate hikes, and potentially kick off a recession. Or be pressured to do nothing (or lower rates further still), which comes with an outsized risk of triggering an inflationary firestorm, when inflation slips beyond the control of policymakers.
The correction to this disaster scenario naturally involves a prudent monetary policy coupled with an administration devoted to fiscal responsibility. However, that will not happen unless Donald Trump, who pledges to reduce taxes dramatically and downsize the scale of government – including putting a full stop to the winless overseas conflicts that have drained the American taxpayer of vital resources at home – gets re-elected on November 5th. Indeed, the 45th President has even proposed teaming up with Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, to establish some sort of “government efficiency” commission (better late than never!). This commission would be dedicated to cutting wasteful regulations based on frivolous environmental and equity-based policies, which do nothing but stifle growth and dampen American prosperity.
However, even with President Trump’s return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Americans will still be contending with the financial fallout emanating from the most economically reckless administration in our history for a period of time. Under the Biden-Harris regime (a more appropriate word for an administration of doubtful legitimacy), $8 trillion has been added to America’s national debt. $4.3 trillion of that total has come over the last year alone, ballooning the total debt in size to nearly $36 trillion, or 124% of total GDP.
Indeed, the United States is on a precarious economic course, one whose future is more uncertain than at any time in modern history. Simultaneously, rather than implement fiscally responsible measures, the Democrats have taken a far leap leftward, proposing dyed-in-the-wool communist policies like taxes on unrealized capital gains, a surefire economy wrecker, which would send America onto the road to serfdom. If, for instance, Americans were all forced by their government to pay taxes on unrealized capital gains from investments in stocks, bonds, and other asset classes, it would trigger a panic selling of untold proportions – ending in an apocalyptic market crash.
Donald Trump, on the contrary, has pledged not to tax social security, hospitality tips, overtime payments, and even deductions on automobile loans. All these things are oriented with a singular objective: to empower the American consumer, who will in turn have more cash on hand to help fuel our embattled economy. He has also pledged to rein in The Federal Reserve, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and myriad other three-letter agencies that have fought tooth and nail over the past four years to make life harder for Americans – whether by deploying armed agents on political dissidents, as the IRS actively seems to be preparing to do, or by clamping down on crypto, Bitcoin, and other emerging alternative asset classes, which the SEC has done, squelching growth and innovation in the process. The result of this keeps more Americans poorer and dependent on Big Brother.
