Will Affordability Bankrupt President Trump?
by James Bovard
Last week, President Trump proudly declared: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situations. I don’t think about anybody.” Will his arrogance seal his political doom?
In early 2022, I predicted in the New York Post that inflation would politically bankrupt President Joe Biden. Will the affordability issue similarly bankrupt President Donald Trump?
Trump constantly blusters as if he deserves the Nobel Prize for Economic Triumphs, just like he supposedly deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. In a January speech in Iowa, he doubled down on his triumphs by referring to himself in the third person: “Just after one year of President Trump, our economy is booming…. Incomes are rising. Investment is soaring. Inflation has been defeated.”
Unfortunately, Trump’s record on the economy is as shaky as his claims that he ended eight wars. The core wholesale inflation rate rose in January at an annual rate of 9 percent. “Howl louder” has been the president’s response.
Beginning late last year, the affordability issue made Trump schizophrenic.
“I don’t want to hear about the affordability!” Trump declared in a Fox News interview in November after falsely claiming that the cost of a dinner would be 25 percent cheaper compared to 2024.
After Democratic candidates bludgeoned their Republican opponents with the issue in the elections, Trump proclaimed on Truth Social on : “I AM THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT. TALK LOUDLY AND PROUDLY!”
But a week later, at a White House meeting, Trump relapsed, revealing that the issue of affordability was a “hoax” and a “Democrat scam.” Did he reach this conclusion by surveying members of his Mar-a-Lago club or what?
In his State of the Union address, Trump railed:
The same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters [such as the Green New Deal] suddenly used the word affordability, a word, they just used it because somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem. They knew their statements were a lie, they knew it, they knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward.
When Trump spoke in Iowa, rally attendees dutifully held up signs made by the Trump campaign team proclaiming: “Lower prices.” Gasoline prices had fallen sharply since a year ago, but after you fill up your tank, life often feels Bidenesque. But gas prices soared after Trump started a war with Iran.
Illusory victories
In an campaign speech, Trump promised, “Prices will come down … fast, not only with insurance, with everything.” Auto insurance prices have jumped 12 percent since 2024, and homeowners insurance rates have jumped 9 percent. Health-insurance premiums are forecast to jump 18 percent in 2026, thanks in part to changes to the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Some of Trump’s greatest victories do not exist beyond his imagination. Trump proclaimed in November that “our groceries [prices] are way down.” But that is true only if people only eat eggs. Egg prices have fallen but that was largely due to the end of the avian flu outbreak. Grocery prices are up about three percent over the past year, and prices for coffee, beef, and other items have soared. Is Trump adopting the Joe Biden proof of prosperity: “Don’t believe your lying eyes at the grocery checkout!?”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed victory over inflation in November based on a DoorDash “Breakfast Basics Index” report that showed a 14 percent decline in the “cost of three eggs, a glass of milk, a bagel and an avocado.” Damn few Trump supporters get DoorDash avocado deliveries for breakfast. DoorDash’s deal is no solace for people pummeled by the 30 percent increase in coffee prices and the 18 percent increase in orange prices since Trump took office.
Is the Trump administration now targeting its economic message solely to people who failed mathematics? On Truth Social, Trump proclaimed, “DRUG PRICES ARE FALLING AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, 500%, 600%, 700%, and more.” Actually, drug prices cannot fall more than 100 percent unless people are getting bribed to swallow the free pills.
But it’s worse than that. Prescription drug prices actually increased roughly two percent in 2025, according to federal data. Trump did cajole price cuts for Ozempic and similar drugs — what Trump called “the fat drug, F-A-T, for fat people.” But that wasn’t sufficient to reduce drug prices overall.
Trump declared: “We now are paying the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs.” It is unclear whether Trump believes this utter buncombe. Some prescription drugs cost ten times more in the United States than in Canada.
Trump’s tariff mania
Trump never tires of reminding audiences: “My favorite word is tariff.” In January, he announced at the Detroit Economic Club: “The evidence shows overwhelmingly that the tariffs are not paid by American consumers.” But Trump’s speech texts are not the dispositive evidence on this score. A report early this year by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated that “Americans paid about 90% of the costs for Trump’s tariffs.”
In a Wall Street Journal article earlier this year, Trump declared that his high tariffs “have created an American economic miracle, and we are quickly building the greatest economy in the history of the world.” Trump’s tariffs are working out great for his big campaign donors, but most Americans are being left behind. Almost 70 percent of Americans believe that Trump’s tariffs have already boosted the prices they are paying. Trump’s tariff policies also helped spur a 15-year high in corporate bankruptcies nationwide. When the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs as illegal, Trump haughtily responded by denouncing the justices and promising to inflict heavy tariffs regardless of their verdict.
Trump talks as if tariff revenue constitutes magic beans that multiply every time Trump makes a wish. In his State of the Union address, he declared, “As time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.” But even with the sky-high tariffs Trump has imposed, federal income tax revenue was seven times higher than tariff revenue. And much of that tariff revenue will likely be refunded.
Will Trump also promise to give everyone a free pony?
At a White House event, the “Freedom Means Affordable Cars” deregulation initiative was unveiled that could eventually trim a thousand dollars off new car prices. Trump promised it will “make buying a car much more affordable.”
But any future regulatory relief is dwarfed by the wallop from Trump’s tariffs. Prices for new autos reached a record $50,080 in September — almost a 4 percent increase since the prior year. Volkswagen raised prices up to 6.5 percent for new models. “Shoppers can expect [Trump’s] tariffs to increase car prices by as much as $6,000 on vehicles priced under $40,000,” Kelley Blue Book reported in September.
Affordability gimmicks
Almost all the Trump “affordability” gimmicks are bad public policy. The tax deductions for interest rates for purchases of new cars made in America encourage people to go further into debt for a consumption item. Roughly 30 percent of the trade-ins for new cars last year were “underwater” — meaning the cars were worth less than what was owed on the original purchase years earlier. As a Washington Post headline warned: “Why you may just be renting your car even if you have a loan.”
Also, Trump might wreck your car engine in order to scarf up votes from corn farmers. When Trump spoke in Iowa, he promised farmers that he would authorize the selling of 15 percent ethanol for auto fuel the year round. That level of ethanol is notorious for ruining auto engines and sabotaging clean air. The Congressional Budget Office admitted in 1995, “Ethanol evaporates quickly, especially in hot weather, contributing to ozone pollution.” Stanford University’s Mark Jacobson estimated in 2007 that the use of high ethanol fuel “may increase ozone-related mortality, hospitalization, and asthma by about 9% in Los Angeles and 4% in the United States as a whole relative to 100% gasoline.” In 2018, when Trump sought 15 percent ethanol, the Sierra Club denounced him for “once again ignoring Americans’ health and safety. Despite claims, corn ethanol is not a safe and environmentally-friendly fuel source — it is hugely detrimental to the environment and public health.”
The mirage of home ownership
To entitle Trump to continue blustering, the president wants citizens to abandon part of the American dream. I was raised in the Appalachian mountains, where people had fierce pride on owning their own abode. You were “redneck rich” if your home was paid off — even if it was only a rough-hewn cabin and a few acres of land way up the hollow.
Young would-be homebuyers are hard squeezed nowadays. Instead of Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake,” Trump’s solution is “let them be serfs.” Trump is championing 50-year mortgages, which mean that most borrowers could never own their residence — or not take title until after they retired. Trump touted his 50-year mortgage plan: “It’s not even a big deal!… From 30 [year mortgages], some people had a 40, and now they have a 50…. It’s not like a big factor!”
Will Trump adapt the odious saying of the World Economic Forum: “You will own nothing and be happy”? Or maybe Trump would recommend that average Americans solve their housing crunch by conniving to use eminent domain to seize prized urban lots at fire-sale prices — as Trump did in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Amazingly, even after Trump effectively looted hapless landowners, his casinos in Atlantic City still went bankrupt three different times.
Millions of Americans are feeling like their path to the middle class is blocked by sky-high housing prices. Trump promised to fix the housing crisis during his 2024 campaign, but he declared in early 2026, “I want to drive housing prices up for the people who own their homes.” And then he inflicted a cheap shot: “We’re not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody who didn’t work very hard can buy a home.”
Federal policies and artificially cheap credit have sent housing prices far above levels that would otherwise prevail. And then Trump comes along and sneers at the victims of federal policies he helped unleash. Many young folks are working two or three jobs to try to save money for a downpayment for their first house. And then Trump comes along and sneers at all of their hustling.
Making America less affordable
Trump has already lost the support of many people who voted for him in . Consumer confidence early this year plunged to the lowest level since 2014, according to a Conference Board survey. More than half of voters say Trump has “made life less affordable” for them and their families, and only 34 percent approved of his handling of “the cost of living.”
Trump’s economic victory proclamations are starting to resemble a bad magician whose tricks are so lame that his audience starts to heckle him. But in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Trump concluded by telling tariff skeptics to wear “one of my favorite red hats — the one that reads, ‘TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!’” But do those wildly overpriced baseball caps — selling for $55 at the Official Trump Store — come with a money-back guarantee in case Trump drives the economy into a ditch? Or you could hedge your risks by going for the $17 knock-off version of the hat made in China and sold by Amazon.
Will Trump doom his presidency by sneering and seeking to make people feel unpatriotic for complaining that his policies are slashing their family’s living standard? Perhaps Trump’s biggest handicap now is that he is no longer running against “sleepy Joe Biden.” Instead, Trump is going up against reality. Trump cannot obliterate economic statistics the same way he ridicules “low IQ” congresswomen or unsmiling reporters.
James Bovard is a policy advisor to The Future of Freedom Foundation and is the author of the ebook Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty, published by FFF, his new book, Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty, and nine other books.
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