Just to cut straight to the chase, you don’t need to read a column by yours truly to know that things cost more than ever and that your dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to.
To say that the rough shape of the economy has been a decade in the making, and far longer than that if we’re being completely intellectually honest, is an understatement.
For years, Democrats have spent like mad men and Republicans have decried the insanity, only to turn around and spend exactly like their opponents upon taking power.
Of all my criticisms of the Republican Party, it’s the spending that has been my biggest gripe.
I think it’s undeniable at this point that, between Trump‘s first term and Biden’s even worse go at the presidency, that we landed in our present situation.
However, while it was true years prior that Biden had the most to do with our economic woes, the Trump Administration has held the reins for all of 2025, and as such, they contributed their own hardships into the mix.
Because for as good as Trump has been on cracking down on illegal immigration, and righting the moral failings of leftist ideological influence on the culture, he has been much worse where the economy is concerned.
It’s something that comes as a surprise to most of his supporters and even to some Democrats, who used to have to pretend that Republican excess alone was making living in the nation more difficult.
It’s one of the reasons that the president saying that the lukewarm economy and affordability issues are merely “Democratic hoaxes“ ring so hollow to the ears of so many Americans.
The fact is, whether deservedly or otherwise, it is the party in power that will receive the blame when Americans feel the pain at the pump or the grocery store.
And so far, the administration has made an only negligible stride in making things more affordable, no matter how difficult that is for them to hear.
Try as they might, the Democrats have done a pretty terrible job at trying to find an angle to finally corner the Trump team and hammer home a political victory.
They tried dredging up the idea that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was responsible for committing war crimes against drug smugglers sailing outside of American waters.
They tried using the Epstein debacle, which, sordid as it is, has largely run its course as a political weapon.
And even now, they are trying desperately to explain away over a billion dollars worth of Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota, as simply the result of the president’s bigotry.
But the one issue that I think is going to stick and is being very much effective is the issue affordability and the Trump Administration’s failures to do more at home to make things cost less.
Broadly, excitement and enthusiasm for Trump’s second term came largely on the promise of putting to bed all of the excess of his predecessor.
That wasn’t a hard sell to the American people since his first term was, by comparison, much smoother, and many will tell you that you can expect Republicans to be marginally better than Democrats where the overall health of the nation’s economy is concerned.
Ironically, I believe President Trump has made the same mistake as his predecessor, namely that he wanted to make his final term in office a barnburner of an event.
Just as Biden sought to be a transformational and important president, so too did Trump, which is something that history will show as a grave miscalculation on both their parts.
In Trump’s case, he has taken a huge gamble on initiating a tariff regime that, and this is my best guess, was supposed to create a temporary economic boom that would last throughout his term.
The consequences of those tariffs, which are likely unconstitutional, be damned, until he was out of power and in the clear.
The only problem is, someone has given him some very bad economic information, because tariffs have never created the sort of widespread prosperity on the level that he seemed to believe was possible.
And unfortunately for Trump, but mostly for the Republican that comes after him, the tides seem to be shifting towards a hefty democratic comeback come election season.
Washington County native Arthur Howell is a staff writer at The Beacon. He can be reached via email at arthur@roanokebeacon.com.