KATIE WALSH SHEILDS: America Can’t Afford Bidenomics

KATIE WALSH SHEILDS: America Can’t Afford Bidenomics

Katie Walsh Shields on August 21, 2023

If you’re wondering why “Rich Men North of Richmond” is topping the charts, it’s Joe Biden.

If Biden isn’t at the beach, eating ice cream, or on a bicycle, he’s parading around the country claiming that “Bidenomics is working.”

It’s not.

Yet this week, the White House is hosting an event to celebrate the one-year anniversary of when Biden, with a stroke of the pen, raised taxes during a recession. Even worse, despite warnings from the Tax Foundation, Penn Wharton, Moody’s Analytics, and the Congressional Budget Office, every single Democrat voted for the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” a name which Biden already regrets.

And why do we think Biden regrets it? Let’s look at the numbers over the last year.

Since Biden took office in January 2021, gas prices are up more than one dollar per gallon, Americans have lost over $2,250 paying for increased energy costs, more than 20 million households are behind on utility bills, real wages are down 3%, and Americans have lost over $10,000 on the higher cost of living. Yet according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre, “Bidenomics is working.”

We’re learning that buying a home, the pinnacle of the American dream, is becoming an out-of-reach dream for millennials. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median age of a first-time home buyer is 36, which is the oldest age since 1981 (the Association didn’t start keeping track until then.)

And just this week, the Wall Street Journal released a report showing that we’ve seen a record increase in homeless people in our country over the last year. Since 2022, there’s been an 11% increase in homeless people, which is the largest jump since the Department of Housing and Urban Development started tracking homelessness. State and local leaders from across the country, from Massachusetts to New York to New Orleans to Los Angeles are sounding the alarm, yet their cries continue to fall on this administration’s deaf ears.

The struggle in real America is real. People are feeling it every day. We see it in the polls, hear about it at the dinner table, and read about it on social media. Every time Biden or an enabling Democrat claims that the economy is on the right track, is a slap in the face to every American family pinching pennies to keep up with Bidenomics.

When Republican presidential candidates are meeting primary voters at diners in New Hampshire, at the Iowa State fair, at store fronts in South Carolina, and in grassroots roundtables in Nevada, they’re hearing the very everyday struggles families are facing. And unlike Biden and Democrats who turn a blind eye to the harsh realities their tax and spending agenda has caused, Republicans are listening. There’s no gaslighting, lying, or deflecting blame.

Has anyone in the White House asked a single mother struggling to buy school supplies and groceries if ‘Bidenomics is working’? How about a small business owner looking for workers? A recent college graduate trying to enter the workforce? A kid who dropped out of school during COVID? A homeless person on the streets of San Francisco?

The answer is no, they haven’t.

Because if they did, they’d learn that the American people aren’t buying Bidenomics – they can’t afford it.

Katie Walsh Shields is a political and public affairs consultant in Washington, DC, with more than 15 years of experience working at the highest levels of national politics and government, including serving as White House Deputy Chief of Staff and as Chief of Staff to the Republican National Committee.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.