We’re now deep enough into Donald Trump’s second term to begin objectively comparing his economic record to Joe Biden’s.
Unsurprisingly, the cold, hard numbers illustrate once again the superiority of Trump’s economic agenda of less regulation and lower taxes versus Biden’s disastrous big-government agenda. They also show the path forward for the Trump administration to extend its early gains.
Recall that by this point in the Biden administration, surging inflation was already stirring public discontent and prompting a torrent of denial and misinformation from administration officials and their apologists on the political left.
Let’s look at the numbers.
According to official government data, inflation stood at just 1.4% when Biden entered office in January 2021. Over the ensuing five months through June 2021, that rate nearly quintupled. It rose to 1.7% by February, 2.6% in March, all the way up to an unsettling 4.1% in April, 4.9% in May and then 5.3% at today’s point in Biden’s term.
Biden and his defenders at first dismissed that painful spike in consumer prices as nonexistent, but by summer were already pivoting to brushing it off as “transitory.”
One year later, however, inflation rose all the way to an excruciating 9% in the summer of 2022. By the time that Biden left the White House in January of this year, inflation remained at 3.0%, over twice as high as when he entered office four years earlier.
Throughout that period, Biden stubbornly maintained his agenda of wasteful “Green New Deal” spending blowouts that only fueled the inflationary fire. As a result, the average American was paying approximately $20,000 more for the same basket of goods that they paid when Biden entered office.
And what has happened since Biden departed?
Well, since Trump returned to the White House, inflation has already declined by 20%. From 3.0% in January, inflation fell to 2.8% in February, 2.4% in March, 2.3% in April and 2.4% in the most recent month reported, when monthly inflation increased just 0.1%.
Remember, those same voices who dismissed Biden’s runaway inflation as “transitory” assured the nation that Trump’s policies would unleash painful consumer price hikes.
Drilling down a bit further, gas prices have plummeted compared with the number one year ago, and today stand at their lowest rate in four years. Keep in mind that this has occurred even amid Middle East turmoil as Israel and the United States executed attacks against oil-rich Iran. Credit President Trump’s immediate effort upon reentering the While House to deregulate the energy sector, which places downward pressure on oil prices by creating the prospect of abundance in future months and years.
Elsewhere, stock markets have ascended to record highs since Trump returned to office, despite predictions of doom from those leftist pundits just three months ago. That also manifests an optimism among businesses and investors regarding the prospect of future growth.
Meanwhile, the latest official jobs report offered similar cause for optimism.
Specifically, employment growth for the month of June exceeded expectations as payrolls increased by 147,000 for the month, well above the 110,000 expectation. That was also higher than May’s 144,000, which itself was adjusted upward from the initial estimate. Moreover, April’s job growth number was also adjusted upward by 11,000 from its earlier estimate. At the same time, the nation’s unemployment rate fell from 4.2% to 4.1%, against forecasts of an increase to 4.3%.
So inflation is slowing, stocks continue to rise after exceeding their all-time highs and job growth continues.
And while economic prediction is obviously a treacherous endeavor, recent events only offer additional reason for optimism.
Last week, President Trump and Congress successfully enacted his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which some label the most pro-growth legislation in history. Unlike Trump’s executive orders, which can be reversed by future presidents with decidedly worse economic agendas, the bill makes permanent the tax reductions of his 2017 bill.
If Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D – New York) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D – New York) had their way, in contrast, the American economy would be hit with a $4 trillion tax increase and revert to the developed world’s highest corporate tax rate.
Anyone want to guess how an immediate tax hike of that magnitude would’ve affected our economy?
The bill also includes such beneficial elements as increasing energy exploration and mining on federal lands to further increase supply, which further reduces our reliance on hostile powers like Venezuela and China for petroleum and rare earths.
Accordingly, early returns already serve to reconfirm the importance of a low-tax, deregulatory, smaller-government economic agenda. By continuing that course, and avoiding such ill-advised ideas as pharmaceutical price controls, prospects for the next three-and-a-half years are bright indeed.
Timothy H. Lee is Senior Vice President of legal and public affairs at the Center for Individual Freedom.
Reprinted with Permission from CFIF.org – Timothy H. Lee
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
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