Biden’s Dismal Economic Handoff…and Trump’s Charge
Recent Housing, Inflation, GDP news all disappoint
Even CNN admitted the inescapable, brutal truth about the hangover of Bidenomics, posting the headline “US Home Sales in 2024 Fall to the Lowest Level Since 1995.”
The text of that article concedes: “sky-high home prices and elevated mortgage rates squeezed home buyers.”
That dismal data point joins a torrent of similar dreadful statistics about the state of the economy, after four years of “Bidenomics” mismanagement. Back in January of 2021, Donald Trump bequeathed to Joe Biden an economy that was roaring back to life following the Covid panic, as America reopened with minimal inflation.
Now, Biden hands a mess back to President Trump.
Thankfully, no group is better equipped to confront this predicament than Trump and his key economic advisors, especially Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Budget Director Russ Vought. But no one should underestimate the difficulty -- and the urgency -- of the task ahead, as proven by the latest economic releases, detailed below.
Though the corrupt corporate media continues to push a ridiculous “the economy is great” narrative, that propaganda does not fool sensible Americans who know very well their own economic reality. For example, regarding the housing affordability crisis of Joe Biden, the University of Michigan survey on buying conditions for housing recently hit an all-time low, in a survey that goes back to the 1960’s! This academic survey center has long been the gold standard to measure consumer sentiment, so this collapse carries foreboding weight.
Of course, the primary driver of housing unaffordability is the runaway inflation created under Biden & Harris that forced interest rates into orbit. Specifically, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate recently surging back above 7.00% again. In the Fall of 2023, Biden previously set the ignoble record for the highest mortgage rates in two decades.
Now, there is evidence that inflation reignited just as Biden left office. The PCE inflation gauge, the preferred inflation read for the Federal Reserve, just came in hot, at 7-month highs – a twisted economic “goodbye kiss” from Biden. See the chart here:
Anyone who shops at the grocery store knows that prices have stayed stubbornly sky-high.
This anxiety unfortunately coincides with an economy that slowed materially into the end of the Biden tenure. Just-released data now confirms that topline GDP national growth only expanded at a sluggish 2.5% rate for 2024, down from 3.2% for the previous year. The details in that GDP report were even worse than the headline, as business investment actually receded in the first quarter.
For many Americans, they see no growth at all in their lives. Important survey data reveals that the Biden economy was misery for working-class Americans. It worked well for the credentialed elites, but not for the masses. My polling for the League of American Workers reveals that among middle-income earners who make $50-75,000 per year, only 31% say Biden’s policies “helped my family” while 57% reporting Bidenomics was “hurting” them.
But thankfully, hope really does spring eternal since Trump’s November triumph. My poll also found that voters now grow enthusiastic under President Trump. Specifically, by a +9% margin, their economic confidence has “improved” vs. “worsened” since Trump’s election, 47-38%.
That confidence in Trump and his team will be validated by an aggressive pursuit of new policies to rein-in profligate spending, smash onerous regulations, restore fiscal sanity, and implement populist nationalist economic policies.
So, we must get realistic about spending. Here are ideas for reforms to reverse budgetary profligacy:
-External Revenue Service – as outlined in Trump’s Inaugural Address, charge tariff premiums for foreign access to the “premium seats,” the American consumer market, which is the envy of the world.
-DOGE activism – ruthless efficiency must prevail, through technology, staff cuts, and impoundment of needless expenditures. Crush the regulatory leviathan so that private sector productivity can soar and pay down this mountain of public debt.
-Medicaid scrutiny -- expenditures have exploded, and the program now undoubtedly suffers from systemic levels of fraud. So, continue taking care of our seniors on Medicare while eliminating exploitation of Medicaid.
-Close the “carried interest” loophole. Force financiers to pay taxes in a manner consistent with middle-class wage earners.
-Tax remittances to foreign countries. Heavily.
-Tax university endowments - especially at the wealthiest, most corrupt schools.
-Restrain Defense outlays - especially through an America First foreign policy of realism and restraint. For example, get out of Ukraine
-Sell federal assets, especially land – vast government holdings should be privatized.
Whichever specific measures get passed through Congress and signed into law, a sense of urgency must prevail, because the Biden economic handoff is a disaster.
The American people grow optimistic, though. They believe that the entrepreneur and builder-in-chief can deliver on a return to prosperity, so let’s make certain that confidence is well-placed.
Steve Cortes is former senior advisor to President Trump and JD Vance. He traded Treasury bonds for 25 years and is a former commentator for Fox News and CNN. He is now president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group.