For the last three years, my colleagues and I have crisscrossed America, listening to the struggles folks are facing under failed Bidenomics policies. The disconnect between the stories told by hardworking people struggling in this economy and the rosy picture painted by the president and his supporters is stark.
The Biden administration may have a glimmer of this, having all but stopped using the term “Bidenomics” because of its well-deserved negative connotation. Unfortunately, it has not changed its policies. It may run from the name, but it can’t hide from three-plus years of disastrous policy that have wrecked the economic and fiscal landscape.
In the years we have spent traveling the country, we have talked with thousands of people about the reality of Bidenomics in their lives — what it’s done to their personal finances and their business ventures. We have also tried to provide a little relief where people are hurting the most: at the grocery store and the gas pump.
Since January 2021, when President Joe Biden took office, overall prices have increased nearly 20%. Families are spending a whopping $11,400 more per year on necessities.
Grocery staples such as cheese, eggs, meat, and fruits and vegetables have all seen significant price increases, with ground beef as much as 103% higher.
And energy costs are following right along with groceries. Gas prices are 33% more expensive and electricity is 29% higher.
Because inflation persists and prices continue to climb, it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet. Biden wants you to believe the government can spend its way to prosperity — which is good for the government but not so for the rest of us.
In our events around the country, we provide those who are struggling with some temporary relief by offering inflation-adjusted discounts on groceries or gas to pre-Biden-inflation rates.
At one gas station event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Marsha so desperately needed the discount that she arrived at 6 a.m. to get in line for an event that began at 10 a.m. Marsha is retired and lives on a fixed income. She had to change doctors because she could no longer afford to drive the long distance to her former provider. Bidenomics has not worked out too well for her.
We also met Niki, from Hobart, Indiana, at a gas discount event. She is a foster mother of four and is raising her two grandchildren after her daughter died. She’s struggling to pay for gas and groceries and had to stop buying meat altogether because of the soaring cost.
And we met business owners such as Rob, Christian, and Xavier in Louisville, Kentucky. They’ve had to find solutions to inflated costs, including increasing prices, changing their business models, or decreasing their take-home pay, which affects their own families.
Bidenomics is not working out for any of them either.
I have heard more of these stories than I can count, as I know my colleagues at Americans for Prosperity have too. Despite the happy talk from Washington, the Biden administration’s misguided economic policies are driving up still-increasing prices for gas, groceries, and other necessities of life, leaving millions of people struggling to pay their bills.
And while you agonize over your monthly budget, the government continues its spending spree with your hard-earned tax dollars. The administration blames “junk fees” or “corporate greed” when it need only look in the mirror to identify the bad guy.
Instead of out-of-control spending and top-down policies, we need to unleash innovation, create opportunity, and lower costs for consumers — the opposite of what Biden is trying to sell.
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We can start with budgeting reforms that rein in federal spending, cutting back on labor regulations so that workers have more flexibility to earn and build businesses, and unleashing the energy industry to drive prices down.
And accountability for lawmakers who have rubber-stamped the Biden administration’s disastrous economic policies would not hurt either. We need leaders in Washington who are pro-growth and pro-prosperity, not pro-regulation and pro-outrageous spending. Millions are suffering from price increases for necessities. Simply put, the country can’t afford Bidenomics.
Kent Strang is managing director of federal strategies at Americans for Prosperity.
