The question that Americans will be asking themselves when they go to the voting booth in November is: Am I and my family better off than we were before Joe Biden?
This was the question Ronald Reagan asked more than 100 million Americans at the end of his famous debate against Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Reagan won in a landslide.
Are Americans better off today than under Donald Trump?
My forthcoming book with Arthur Laffer called “The Trump Economic Miracle” shows that the answer for the vast majority of middle-class Americans is: Hell no.
Family incomes fall
Here’s one basic kitchen-table issue that encapsulates the grand failure of Bidenomics: As a result of runaway inflation that reached 9.1% in the summer of 2022, the average family income — after taking price inflation into account — has fallen by $2,100 through May 2024.
That is, most Americans are poorer in their real take-home pay.
What happened to incomes under Trump?
Nearly a $6,000 gain.
That’s an enormous $8,000 swing from Trump policies to Biden policies as measured by what typical Americans can afford to buy each year.
What about economic conditions for minorities?
Under Trump, the poverty rate reached record lows and incomes hit new highs for blacks and Hispanics.
Under Biden, the official poverty rate has risen for minorities and their incomes have shrunk.
Then there is the issue of achieving the American dream of home ownership.
Under Trump, thanks to low mortgage interest rates that fell to 3%, home affordability soared.
Under Biden with mortgage rates soaring to above 7%, affordability fell to its lowest level in 30 years.
Young couples can’t afford homes to start a family.
Monthly mortgage payments to buy a median-value home have nearly doubled in less than four years.
Thanks, Joe.
How are families making ends meet?
For many, they aren’t.
They are falling further into debt.
Credit-card debt in the US now has a one and 12 zeroes: $1,000,000,000,000 ($1 trillion) owed.
Laffer and I have examined more than 20 key measures of our economic well-being as a nation.
On nearly every measure Trump beats Biden.
Inflation averaged 2% under Trump and 6% under Biden.
The national debt rose by $5.5 trillion under Trump (mostly because of COVID), but $7.5 trillion under Biden.
Gas prices are higher by more than $1 a gallon under Biden.
Deregulation works
So what were the policies that caused the Trump boom?
First, tax cuts that made American businesses more competitive.
Second, an all-in energy policy using all of America’s bountiful resources to drive down costs.
Trump was a deregulator in chief, with the average family saving $5,000 due to a lighter touch of regulation, according to a study by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan.
One cost savings was Trump’s repeal of an expensive Obama-era fuel standard on future vehicles.
That immediately reduced the cost of a new car by an average of $2,000.
Better trade deals forced other nations, from Mexico to China, to give America a fair deal.
Enterprise zones in inner cities helped bring jobs and economic development to depressed areas under Trump’s presidency.
Trumponomics 2.0 will bring a return to these pro-business and pro-worker Put America First policies.
Trump has also endorsed further income tax cuts, expanded school choice for low-income families, no tax on tips for service workers from waitresses to caddies.
One study has found this could save working-class tipped workers $100 billion over 10 years.
He will make his tax cuts permanent — whereas Biden wants to enact one of the largest tax hikes in history.
He will use all of America’s $50 trillion of energy and mineral resources to make us less dependent on foreign sources.
He will ask for presidential impoundment power to slash hundreds of billions of still-unspent money from COVID and other spending bills.
He will cancel Biden’s $300 billion green-energy slush fund.
He will even let Americans buy whatever cars they want — electric or gas-powered.
Can Trump make America’s economy great again? His answer is compelling: “Why not? I’ve already done it once.”
Stephen Moore is visiting senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. He has served as an economic adviser to Donald Trump.
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