'We've got to bring these prices down'
The Republican failure to live up to their promises on the high cost of living is now hurting them.
Donald Trump finally noticed people aren’t happy about high prices.
The president spent the better part of a year ignoring the issue that got him elected and even imposed tariffs that made it worse.
However, ever since the Democrats won big in the off-year elections last week, Trump has been trying to make amends: By brazenly telling Americans they’re delusional; that prices aren’t high at all.
“Every price is down,” Trump said last week. Later, he amended his statement to say that “everything is way down.”
This is not true, of course, and Americans know it.
A Pew Research Center survey, published last month, said only 26% of Americans believe the economy is in good shape, which is roughly the same as in 2024. High inflation, food and grocery prices—and tariffs—were all cited as primary reasons for the malaise.
Now, Trump’s poll numbers on the economy are also plummeting. As one analyst who specializes in polling, put it, “Donald Trump is Joe Biden now.”
This isn’t just a problem for Trump, of course. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is on the hook, too.
Remember when Iowa’s 1st District congresswoman said in a TV ad: “Do you want to decide your vote this year? Just look in your grocery cart.”
Americans are looking, and they aren’t happy.
Trump and Miller-Meeks were largely successful in the elections last year by suggesting to voters, if not outright telling them, they would bring prices down. They glossed over the idea that inflation, or the rate of increase, had fallen and instead tried to leverage voter dissatisfaction with the high prices themselves.
A year later, prices aren’t falling. Other than gasoline prices—which have gone down as the Saudis boost supply to try to recapture market share from the US and other oil producers—most everything else remains pretty high.
The price of ground beef has gone up 14% this year alone.
A year ago, Miller-Meeks blamed the “liberals in Washington” for high prices. She said they were “nuts,” and she was fighting against them.
“I approved this message, because we’ve got to get these prices down,” she said in her TV ad.
Miller-Meeks has been campaigning on the issue of high costs for years. She promised relief in 2022, too. But instead of fighting to control costs, she’s actually done the opposite. She is complicit in Trump’s tariff scheme that has pushed prices up. She’s voted in the House to uphold the tariffs, and she defended them in a recent radio interview.
The government’s import taxes have risen to about $30 billion per month—or $85 for every person in the US. Most of those taxes have been passed on to consumers, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
It’s not just the tariffs that are raising costs, either. Americans across the board are facing higher health insurance premiums. KFF recently reported costs for employer-sponsored health plans are up at twice the rate of general inflation. Meanwhile, the people who get coverage from the Affordable Care Act are looking at dramatically higher prices as tax credits approved during the Biden administration, and extended to the middle class, are due to expire at the end of this year.
Republicans voted this summer for all sorts of tax breaks to help rich people and corporations, but they made no room in their hearts for the 24 million people on Obamacare.
Congressional Democrats have tried to use the government shutdown to extend those tax credits, but Republicans fought them, and now a handful of Democrats in the Senate have given in.
This won’t help Democrats sell the public on the idea they’re the party that can successfully lower costs, though it will open the government and help families on SNAP get full food assistance. (The administration has been withholding that assistance to exert pressure on the Democrats. The unfortunate truth in all this is congressional Republicans are far more willing than Democrats to inflict pain on the public in order to get their way.)
Even so, one advantage Democrats have—at least for now—is Republicans aren’t even trying to find real solutions to high costs.
On healthcare, Republicans have failed for years to come up with a plan to lower costs that will actually work—and can pass.
On housing, Trump’s latest whim is to push the idea of a 50-year mortgage that would lower monthly mortgage payments—modestly—but in return sentence home buyers to a lifetime of indebtedness to finance companies. The idea is so dumb the White House is scrambling to undo the damage.
No wonder Americans are frustrated. The president they elected to lower prices first ignores them, then tries to convince them they’re delusional, then offers half-baked ideas his allies run from.
This is the president whose endorsement Miller-Meeks covets.
Here’s the bottom line: Republicans spent years blaming Biden for high prices, especially at the grocery store, and they said they would bring costs down. Now, they’re paying the price for their failure to deliver. Democrats can win on this issue, but only if they convince voters they have solid ideas to make life more affordable and then actually follow through.
In New York City, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani won over voters with real plans to deal with the high cost of housing, childcare and transportation. Right-wingers may criticize those plans, but voters who are frustrated up to their eyeballs decided to give him a chance.
Voters gave Trump and Miller-Meeks a chance, too. But so far, they have not only driven costs up, they’ve ignored the people’s concerns. Now, Republicans are telling Americans high prices are just an illusion.
This is no way to help people who are hurting. It’s also no way to win elections.
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A bit of history is necessary for context. E&P companies were virtually halted, M2 was expanded to historic levels by 3+x normal levels, production was ceased with covid mandates, welfare spending levels were left in place well after covid ended, illegal aliens were admitted wholesale and transported all over the country at taxpayer expense, and somehow, just somehow, the Trump administration is responsible for the high level of prices today. Further, the government under the previous administration was picking winners and losers based on their "Inflation Reduction Act" and their "Covid Relief Act." Automobile inflation, construction materials, raw materials costs, etc all went up significantly as a result. Petrochemical products were deemed unsustainable and penalized on multiple levels (find me something we use every day that isn't touched by petroleum). The result was higher inflation than even Pres. Carter could muster with his mistreatment of the economy and ill-gotten malaise of rotten policies. It took the previous administration roughly 17 months to reverse the positive economy they inherited and wreak havoc over. It's difficult to assess blame at the feet of the current administration. Rather, it would seem that people are disappointed that the Trump cannot work miracles and fix the "mess ups" from days gone by in as optimistic a timeline as he hoped for. That's where the disappointment really is today; it's not getting fixed fast enough.
Well, Miller Meeks can't be in any doubt about how people feel after the town hall last night.