President Joe Biden talked incessantly about his “from the middle class out” economic strategy. Given his record, it would have been more accurate to call it the “middle class down and out” plan. Inflation has eroded away any income gains under Biden’s presidency.
Now Vice President Kamala Harris has her own riff on this theme. Her campaign motto is “building up the middle class.” It isn’t exactly “Make America Great Again,” but Dems don’t have a lot of time to come up with anything catchier, given that Kamala was reluctantly chosen as the 8th inning relief pitcher for Old Joe, who had long ago lost his fastball.
But Harris and Biden are, as the old saying goes, birds of a feather who flock together. They are running on almost precisely the same agenda as we’ve seen for four years.
The central problem is that the record for most Americans is a lot more meaningful than the message. The irony of this “build the middle class” mantra is that no administration in recent times has done more to tear down the middle class than Biden-Harris.
The most recent Census Bureau data on incomes and poverty shows that under former President Trump, incomes of the middle class rose faster than under all the three previous presidents combined.
The difference between the Trump and Biden administrations is $8,000 per household in Trump’s favor.
This same data shows income gains for minorities and female-headed households were larger under Trump. Poverty rates fell faster under Trump as well.
The reasons for the lousy Biden-Harris record are that even though incomes grew under both presidencies, inflation erased all the real income gains for workers. In other words, if the prices of eggs and bread and rent and gas go up by more than your paycheck, you’re at best treading water. Or, for the majority of households, you’re using pots and pans to keep the water out of the basement.
Biden and Harris seem to have really believed that inflation would be transitory. They drank the Kool-Aid of a trendy new economic theory called modern monetary theory, which posited that the U.S. government could spend and borrow ’til kingdom come without any collateral damage. But a high school economics student could tell you that handing out free money to stimulate demand for goods and services is likely to raise the price of goods and services. In the end we learned the hard way that there’s no getting around the old law of supply and demand.
Now that the economy is showing signs of cracks in the hill, the only Harris remedy is trillions more spending and borrowing. Team Harris thinks the Fed can simply cut interest rates and the pain will go away. Maybe. But more likely that will only stimulate more spending and make the economy even more vulnerable. What they won’t do is cut excessive government spending and debt — for example, by canceling some $300 billion of failed green energy programs.
The Left shouts that Trump is the one who will rekindle inflation with his tax cuts. But that’s a hard message to sell given that there was virtually no inflation during Trump’s term. His average annual inflation rate was 1.9% versus 6% for Biden-Harris.
Trump will continue to argue to the voters that he is the president that will “build out” the middle class, and even though the future is hard to predict, he has history firmly on his side.
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior economic advisor to Donald Trump. His latest book is: “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”
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The only time joe is for the middle class is at election time. Just look at his net worth since becoming a crooked politician.
There has never been a term with more definitions than ” middle class” No one knows what the hell it means. The dims will tax all of us, including whatever they decide the”middle class” is into oblivion. They will always talk about taxing the wealthy. What they mean is the mean the “middle class” as whatever group they want it to be. The $50K per year family ? The $75K per year family ? The $100K per year family ? Who knows No one knows Its whatever the dims declare it to be whenever they decide to grab the next $5 trillion from the taxpayers.
Since our tax law is subject to thousands of interpretations, the wealthy are too smart and have too many tax advisors to be clobbered. Until we totally eliminate our tax system, the wealthy will laugh at the comment ” tax the wealthy”. They always stay a step or 2 steps ahead of tax law. Want to bust the rich ? Replace the tax code.
POWER IS ALL THE DEMOCRAT’S ARE AFTER , RULE OVER ALL OF US .THE GREAT RESET TO THE NEW DICTATOR SHIP OF AMERICA. NO LONGER THE LAND OF THE FREE .
I hope the middle class votes, everyone of us.
Biden-Harris cared about nothing except being in Power!!
NONE of the candidates for President nor their chosen VPs are of the “working class”. They are ALL extremely wealthy with a couple gaining their funds from questionable sources.
I will NEVER support any candidate that has anything to do with the 21st Century Democrat Party and right now can’t think of any from the 20th hnor even the 19th Century but I am not deluded enough to buy into the “Snuffy Smith” narrative regarding JD Vances background, The likes of Snuffy Smith wouldnt be allowed to shine the shoes of Peter Thiel much less be essentially mentored by that demon.
Biden and Harris are both lying thieves and leeches off the public tit, neither having ever worked a real job, unless literal prostitution on the part of Harris counts.
Trump did work in real estate and is often as distasteful as are all realtors but at least the man will tell you the crap he will be pulling and has a short history of trying to steer America from its addiction to foreign conflicts though his stupidity where it comes to personnel decisions is for the record books.
The only sane choice this late fall lies with Trump. We can always hope that Vance merely used Thiel as a stepping stone on his almost crazed power trip. We shall have to see,
Considering Kamala and that neuter from Minnesota? Why not just take your kids and grand kids out back and kill them yourselves and save future taxpayers from slowly doing it under the direction of those evil scumbags/
I can’t even add up the amount of our money that has gone to the Ukraine. But, if you go to openthebooks.com you will see where our money is going (yes, it is our money, as there is not such thing as “government money.” The government doesn’t produce any good or services that bring in revenue. It is all tax money-our tax money.) Foreign aid expenditures are 70.4 billion, 48 billion to ‘various entities’ in communist China, 400 billion in covid fraud. Goodwill industries (a charity ? organization) 1,400,00, 63 million for non-profits that provide member of congress and staffers to 940 destinations (all these figures are for last year) In 2021 the government spent 5,850,000,000,000 more than it collected in taxes. Ask yourself why Congress always wants to dip into Medicare and SSI when there is a monetary crisis? Just to frighten us into compliance. Just think what Medicare and SSI could do with just the money sent to foreign countries including China-that’s 118.4 billion dollars!
Building up the middle class. Does she mean the lower class should lift itself up, or that middle class must be propped up? Should lower class lift itself up where will that leave the welfare workers? Would plantation cease to exist? No, she can’t mean that .Definitely not in the script.
The only thing “transitory” is how much savings I have each month. Maybe Democrats should take a page from their cartel friends? The only thing that hasn’t increased in price in over 35 years are illegal drugs!
I doubt they give much priority to the “be happy” part!
There is never going to be a build up of the middle class. The Totalitarian Communist Democrat Party only wants more division.
They want to make there be only two classes of people. Themselves the rich / powerful and the rest of us the peasants.
This is how Communism works. All we can really hope for is that the peasants get there pitch forks / clubs and rise up.
Because an elite few (comparatively speaking) will own it all and you and I as well. Total dependence on those in power is their goal. One World Order under the few.
You meen Tweedle DEE and TWEEDLE DUM.l. Kyle L.
Article can be misleading! If anything he his by far a no-class, who only gain is self image of grandeur
They want even ppl barely surviving to share that wealth because there’s always someone who has less!
What is the source of the photo for this article? That does not look like Biden!
Sad to say that so many people hate Trump enough that they will vote for Harris. After all, that is pretty much how Trump became President-we didn’t want Clinton. I don’t like the man but I do like his values and his love of our country. I am afraid the anti-Trump message is winning and this country may never recover. And I am usually a glass half full person. The message just isn’t getting out there.