Republicans won a cost-of-living election in 2024, beating a Democratic Party that much of the country blamed for high prices. Voters were broadly correct in assessing that blame: The Biden administration, with the backing of Congressional Democrats, shoveled trillions of dollars out the door under the auspices of COVID-19 “relief” — ignoring warnings from some of its own ideologically allied economists that the results would be hugely inflationary.
If it hadn’t been for dissenting votes cast by two Democratic senators, that inflation orgy would have swelled by trillions more. Both of those senators, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, are now ex-senators, having been harassed and hounded out of the party by irate leftists. Moderating forces and faces within Democratic politics are getting aggressively marginalized. The guardrails are being pried away.
Republicans’ downfall this November may well come back to the same core problem: People are feeling the pinch of paying too much for practically everything. Having failed to solve the problem they were elected to alleviate, arguably exacerbating it in a few ways, frustrated voters once again appear poised to channel that dissatisfaction at the ballot box.
The challenge, of course, is that the only viable alternative to the party currently in power is the party this same electorate just threw out of power, which should have practically zero credibility on matters of “affordability.” Not only did Democrats use their last bite at the policy apple to blow out the budget and send prices soaring, but they also voted in lockstep last year against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, also known as the working families tax cuts. That legislation, passed exclusively by Republicans, prevented a multitrillion-dollar, across-the-board tax hike, which was set to automatically kick into place.
Democrats unanimously opposed preventing those bruising tax increases, while also unanimously opposing GOP-championed tax relief on earnings derived from tips and overtime pay — not typically the sort of thing that would benefit “millionaires and billionaires.”
It’s a neat trick to fuel historic inflation with staggering government spending, then vote against protecting people of all income groups against the largest tax increase in U.S. history, then turn around and insist that you’re the party of affordability. It’s worth noting that after being swept into office with “affordability” sloganeering last year, the supposedly “centrist” Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) immediately set her sights on priorities such as imposing sanctuary policies to shield criminal illegal immigrants, and an unconstitutional power grab to turn one of the most proportional and representative congressional maps in the country into a lopsided partisan gerrymander. Affordability, etc.
But given voters’ penchant to lurch back and forth in disillusionment, this dynamic stands to benefit the very people who were just chucked out of power as culprits and villains. Voters have short memories. Voters want results.
A staple of Democrats’ messaging this cycle is tapping into anger over elevated gas and diesel prices. It would be politically insane not to do so, of course. But as the opposition party holds press conferences and cuts commercials in front of gas stations, voters ought to remember that higher energy costs are their stated policy goal. They’re bellyaching about prices as a means to regain power, but the policies they pursue with said power are often explicitly anti-energy. In their oft-stated zeal to crush fossil fuels, energy costs “necessarily skyrocket,” as one very prominent Democrat once put it.
But it’s for a good cause, you see, as are all the expensive mandates and costly taxpayer subsidies attached to the party’s so-called “green” agenda. Based on desired outcomes, they should be positively thrilled about high gas prices. For now, though, they’re acting indignant and empathetic to attain power.
For their part, Republicans, starting with the president, should have been consistently seeding the message that their policies are oriented around American energy dominance and that the pain inflicted by the Iran conflict is both temporary and a necessary short-term consequence of eliminating the nuclear threat from a “death to America” regime that’s been attacking our people for decades.
When that task is complete, and the regime is being suffocated right now, American energy dominance is the priority. The opposition, by contrast, is anti-energy dominance and therefore effectively pro-higher costs. That’s its actual policy.
More to the point: How, exactly, will the politicians who caused an affordability crisis last time they ran Washington fix the problem in the future? Why, by raising taxes and spending even more money, of course. Raising taxes and spending, and variants of that stale formula, is more or less their entire economic plan, always.
In an interview with CBS News last weekend, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who’s rumored to have higher political ambitions, was asked to explain Democrats’ plan to lower costs. He barely got a sentence into his answer before extolling the virtues of hiking taxes — only on “the rich,” naturally — to fund other proposals.
In short, yet more wealth transfers, rather than wealth creation or meaningful pro-growth reforms. Also, these tax schemes never seem to play out as marketed to the public.
Consider, for example, this update on a representative tax-hike-on-the-rich implemented by leftists in Los Angeles. It targets “mansions,” so it’s got to be “fair,” right? (Emphasis mine):
LA’s “mansion tax,” sold to Angelenos as a way to tax the rich and boost housing, has instead blocked the building of 9,100 homes, wiped out 16,650 full-time construction jobs and cost $452 million in revenue. A damning new report says the tax, officially known as United to House LA, or ULA — has had a negative impact on the city’s high-end and multi-family real estate markets and collected less than half what it was expected to generate to tackle the city’s housing crisis. The ULA was expected to raise about $900 million a year, or $2.7 billion over its first three years. Instead, it brought in about $1.2 billion. Despite its nickname, LA’s “mansion tax” applies far beyond luxury homes. Apartment buildings, offices, warehouses and vacant land can all trigger the tax if they sell above the thresholds. About 1,000 of the 9,100-plus new homes lost would have been affordable units — the very thing the tax was supposed to create — according to RAND corporation, a non-partisan, nonprofit research group. Simply put, the tax has discouraged some owners from selling and developers from pursuing projects that, because of the tax, no longer make financial sense.
This policy, championed by the city’s socialist mayoral candidate, was supposed to only hurt wealthy “mansion” owners. In reality, the promised revenues have fallen dramatically short of projections, while crushing new projects — increasing supply is one of the only ways to fix the housing crisis — and killing jobs.
Behold, “progress.”
Further up the West Coast, Democrats in Washington State are about to impose their new income tax, which they’ve sold as a tax on “millionaires.” But when Republicans “offered an amendment to lock the 9.9 percent rate and the $1 million threshold into law, Democrats on the Senate Ways and Means Committee rejected it by voice vote without discussion.” And now some of those Democrats already appear to be moving the goalposts, before implementation, to lower the threshold for what qualifies as a “millionaire.”
Imagine that.
This is how this tends to go. They market ideas using grievance and envy-based assurances and bumper stickers, then slowly start expanding the circle of pain as the bogus math inevitably fails in practice.
Finally, with the Democratic Socialists of America marching through the Democratic Party in a hostile takeover mission, voters should also bear in mind that, according to a nonpartisan analysis, that organization’s published platform calls for $200 trillion in new spending. Two hundred trillion dollars.
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Setting aside the urgent matter of our mushrooming $41 trillion national debt, how would any of that DSA agenda get paid for? By battering people of all incomes with giant tax increases, that’s how.
If this coalition gets its way, the “affordability” they promise is going to be ruinously unaffordable.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
