Originally published at National Review. 

Washington's 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act went into law on July 11 without President Trump’s signature. The benefits of that bill are questionable, and Trump hoped to incentivize Congress to also pass the SAVE America Act, which didn’t happen. This federal housing bill gives governors and state lawmakers an opportunity to think before copying one of Congress’s worst ideas.

The newly passed bill gets some things right. It would ease some federal environmental reviews, improve manufactured-housing rules, and encourage local governments to remove other barriers that discourage building housing in Opportunity Zones and other areas. Those steps could help because America needs more homes, and we need them soon.

But Congress also targeted large institutional investors that own at least 350 single-family homes. That sounds simple. It is bad economics.

Milton Friedman often reminded people to look beyond good intentions and ask what incentives a policy creates. Restricting one group of buyers does not build a single new home. It can mean less investment, fewer rentals, slower repairs, more uncertainty, and higher prices than we would otherwise have.

Housing affordability mostly comes down to supply. When more people want homes than the market can provide, prices rise. Politicians can blame Wall Street, landlords, out-of-state buyers, or anyone else — but the real issue is still scarcity.

Government helped create that scarcity. Zoning rules limit where homes can be built. Minimum lot sizes force families to buy more land than they need. Parking mandates add costs. Permitting delays slow construction and raise financing costs. Impact fees increase home prices. Property taxes push up ownership and rental costs every year.

Blaming investors after blocking supply is like blaming umbrellas for rain. The data do not support the panic. In particular, institutional investors buy a very small share of housing. 

A recent report found that, “Institutions, defined by the proposed legislation as entities with 350+ homes in a portfolio, own ~0.7 percent of the 92 million US single-family homes and institutional investors of this size have been scaling back acquisitions — accounting for just 1 percent of all U.S. home purchases, down from a 4 percent peak in 2022.”

⁠Realtor.com likewise found institutional investors accounted for about 1 percent of national single-family home sales over the past decade, and their purchases have fallen since the 2021 peak. Most investor activity comes from smaller landlords. ⁠Realtor.com reported that investors bought 11.3 percent of homes in 2025, but mom-and-pop investors led the activity. Separately, the ⁠Mercatus Center at George Mason University found that large institutional owners have never accounted for more than 2 percent to 5 percent of purchases in any quarter.

​What’s more, even forcing every institutionally owned single-family rental into owner-occupancy would barely change the market. ⁠Brookings estimates available owner-occupied homes would rise only about 1 percent to 2 percent. That is not an affordability plan; it is a talking point.

Bad landlords exist. So do bad tenants, homeowners, builders, lenders, and politicians. Handle real misconduct with contracts, fraud laws, property standards, and local accountability. Broad ownership restrictions punish investment and reduce options.

Single-family rentals serve real families. Some households want a yard, more space, and neighborhood stability without buying right away. Others cannot qualify for a mortgage or want flexibility. Build-to-rent communities and professionally managed rentals help meet those needs.

A simple question cuts through politics: Compared with what?

If an investor cannot buy and repair a home, who fixes it? If a build-to-rent project is discouraged, where do those families live? If capital leaves because lawmakers threaten ownership limits, how does that create more homes? It does not.

Lawmakers should move the other way: Avoid special taxes on institutional owners, reject purchase caps, protect build-to-rent communities, and skip restrictive reporting rules. Real and effective reforms include legalizing more housing, shortening permitting timelines, limiting excessive fees, restraining government spending, and limiting property taxes before increasing budgets become a response to rising housing costs. States should also protect property rights when Washington tells people whom they may buy from, sell to, or rent from. Model legislation, legal challenges, and market-access protections would do better than anti-investor grandstanding.

None of this is about defending Wall Street. The issue is supply, competition, and choice. Prices send signals. High housing prices tell us homes are too scarce. Punishing buyers will not fix that.

Congress already made the investor mistake. Governors and state legislators should not make it worse. Housing needs more homes, not more scapegoats.

Originally posted on Substack. 

​The federal government “shut down” at the end of January 2026, then reopened on February 3 after Congress passed a $1.2 trillion spending package that keeps most agencies funded through September. If you blinked, you probably missed the impact.

That is the point. For most families and businesses, daily life barely changed. Washington staged a high-drama budget fight, then “fixed” it with a giant bill and another deadline. Meanwhile, the real crisis keeps compounding: a federal government that spends too much, borrows too much, and relies on institutions like the Federal Reserve to absorb the consequences.

Congress ended the shutdown by passing an omnibus-style deal. The House vote was a razor-thin 217–214, and the bill included back pay for furloughed federal employees. That ended the second shutdown in four months, but it did not end the dysfunction.

The bill also left one massive loose end. The Department of Homeland Security was funded only through February 13, 2026, setting up another deadline that could trigger another lapse. That includes big, everyday functions like TSA airport screening, FEMA disaster response, and border and immigration enforcement.

The fight is now over whether Congress will attach new restrictions on DHS operations, with both sides already signaling they may force another showdown. You can read the basic structure of what agencies do during a lapse in the government’s own shutdown planning documents.
So what was accomplished?

A shutdown is not a spending cut. It is a temporary lapse in discretionary funding when lawmakers fail to pass appropriations bills. Discretionary means Congress votes on it each year. In contrast, mandatory spending like Social Security and Medicare largely runs on autopilot under existing law.

Even during a shutdown, many mandatory payments continue, many federal activities continue, and the federal government’s debt meter keeps running.

That is why a shutdown is mostly political theater. It interrupts some services, creates uncertainty, and turns federal workers into pawns. But it does not fix the budget, and it does not address the actual fiscal math.

The real fiscal math is ugly. The United States is carrying roughly $38 trillion in gross federal debt, which is the total amount of Treasury obligations outstanding. On top of that sits a mountain of unfunded liabilities, which is a polite phrase for promises already made for future benefits without dedicated funding set aside to pay for them.

People can argue about the exact size of those unfounded liabilities depending on assumptions, but the direction is unmistakable: the federal government has promised far more than it can pay without much higher taxes, major reforms, less spending, or significant inflationary financing.

Now connect that back to this shutdown “solution.” Congress kept most agencies funded through September. It might avoid a weekend of headlines, but it does nothing to slow the long-term spending trajectory that drives debt higher year after year.

And as debt gets bigger, interest costs become a budget-eater. When you owe $38 trillion, even small interest-rate moves matter. A one percentage point increase in average borrowing costs across a large portion of federal debt quickly translates into hundreds of billions more in annual interest expense over time.

That is money taxpayers send out the door before funding national defense, infrastructure, or tax relief. It is also money that crowds out private investment, because capital gets pulled into financing government IOUs instead of productive private activity.

This is why the Federal Reserve keeps getting pulled into fiscal failure.

When Congress will not control spending, markets start asking whether the Fed will be pressured to keep rates lower than they should be, or to buy more government debt to stabilize borrowing costs. That practice is often called monetizing the debt, meaning the central bank creates money to purchase government bonds. It can suppress rates in the short run, but it distorts markets and can contribute to inflation risks over time if money growth outpaces real economic output.

The Fed’s balance sheet is a major part of this story. A balance sheet is simply the Fed’s assets and liabilities, mainly the Treasury and mortgage bonds it holds, and the bank reserves it creates. Keeping that balance sheet huge can keep market signals muted and misprice risk. Shrinking it restores more market discipline, but it can also push some interest rates higher in the short run.

That is why Fed leadership matters, especially if the goal is to shrink the balance sheet toward something closer to historical norms, rather than living permanently in emergency-mode policy. If the Fed remains a quiet backstop for federal borrowing, Congress has even less incentive to make hard choices.

To be clear, “spending causes inflation” is too simplistic. Inflation is ultimately a monetary phenomenon: too much money chasing too few goods. But excessive federal spending absolutely pressures the Fed into choices that can amplify inflation risks, especially when deficits are persistent and political leaders want cheap financing. Fiscal irresponsibility and monetary distortion feed each other.

And this is not just a Washington problem.

Look at Texas as a warning sign. Texas does not have a personal income tax, which is a major competitive advantage. But spending discipline still matters, because spending is the ultimate burden of government. If spending grows faster than taxpayers can sustain, the bill shows up later through higher property taxes, higher sales taxes, or new fees.
​
The Texas budget makes it clear that the budget is not declining using the Legislative Budget Board’s (LBB) fuzzy math. This is because the LBB is comparing spending to appropriations while there is no actual spending in the upcoming periods yet so the measurements aren’t consistent. Here are the results with consistent comparisons.

• Since 2022–23, total state funds appropriations jumped from $166.3 billion to $236.5 billion, a rise of about $70.2 billion, or 42.2%.
• Over the same period, all funds grew from $264.8 billion to $338.5 billion, up about $73.7 billion, or 27.8%.
• Even just since 2024–25, state total rose from $219.4 billion to $236.5 billion, an increase of about $17.0 billion, or 7.8%.
• General Revenue alone increased from $144.3 billion to $149.8 billion, up about $5.6 billion, or 3.9%.

​A simple common-sense benchmark for sustainable budgeting is population growth plus inflation. If government grows faster than the number of people it serves and the cost of providing services, it is getting bigger in real per-person terms. That may be defensible if outcomes are improving, but it is rarely what happens. More often, it becomes the excuse for “we need more revenue,” meaning taxpayers pay now or taxpayers pay later.

That is the broader lesson from the shutdown episode. Republicans and Democrats can argue over line items, immigration riders, and which agency gets funded for how long. But the pattern remains: big spending packages, temporary patches, more debt, and another deadline.

This must stop. Congress needs fiscal hawks again, not performers. The federal government cannot keep treating budgeting like a recurring hostage situation while debt and interest costs compound. And states that claim to be different cannot keep spending like Washington and expect credibility to hold.

Closing

The shutdown ended. The headlines faded. The debt kept growing.

That is the reality Americans live with, even when Washington pretends everything is fine. If lawmakers want trust, they should stop governing by crisis and start governing by limits.

Restrain spending growth, pass sustainable budgets, and stop pushing the consequences onto the Fed and future taxpayers.

Review Summary

• Congress ended the shutdown with a $1.2 trillion spending package that funds most agencies through September. The House vote was 217–214, and the deal included back pay. DHS funding only runs to February 13, keeping shutdown risk alive for major functions like TSA and FEMA.
• The real crisis is the debt path, not the shutdown drama, with $38 trillion in gross federal debt and huge unfunded liabilities. Texas shows the same challenge at the state level, with state spending growth far outpacing a sustainable population-plus-inflation path.

Originally published at The Freemen News-Letter. 

​Would you ask a hungry fox to guard the henhouse? Of course not. For the same reason, Americans should be very wary when “Congress debates solutions to soaring [healthcare] bills.”  

Most people do not believe that the mainstream media reports honestly and objectively. Some still do, likely due to some residual credibility that may cling to the highly partisan, opposite-of-objective misinformation masters called the legacy or complicit media. 
Consider the facts. 

Reporter Samantha Manning of CMG Washington News Bureau announced that Congress will discuss how to solve the problem of unaffordable healthcare prices. “Unaffordable” applies to both individual Americans and the nation.

Last year, the U.S. spent $4.8 trillion on its healthcare system, an amount greater than the entire GDP of Japan, which added $2.24 trillion to a Biden-Harris record debt of $33.17 at the end of 2022. The average U.S. family healthcare costs in 2023 were equally unaffordable, a staggering $31,065. 

To call healthcare bills “soaring” is no exaggeration. Where is the money going? Are the doctors responsible for “price-gouging,” to use V.P. Harris’ phrase? Data shows that payments to doctors – “allowable reimbursement schedules” released by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) – pay only a small fraction of physicians’ published prices. In many cases, physicians in their offices are paid below the cost of doing business, which is why solo practitioners have been driven out of practice. 

If not to physicians or hospitals, where is the money going? Studies estimate that between 31 percent and more than 50 percent of U.S. healthcare spending does NOT pay for patient care! It pays for BARRCOME – bureaucracy, administration, rules, regulations, compliance, oversight, mandates, and enforcement. In other words, Washington pays its bureaucrats $1.5 trillion to $2.4 trillion “healthcare” dollars, taking those dollars away from patients, taxpayers, and health care providers.

For proof, look no further than the Affordable Care Act (ACA). To pay for all the BARRCOME, such as 50 state Health Exchanges (Dr. Deane was a Director), the ACA took $716 billion from the Medicare Trust, money intended to pay for seniors’ in-hospital care. 

When most people read about a congressional commission to curb healthcare fraud, new rules to activate price transparency, or the recent legislative effort to reduce healthcare spending, they think price lists just appear. Recouping fraudulent medical bills is not free, and we’re already paying the salaries of members of Congress, so how can a new commission cost money? 

When the government does anything, it costs taxpayers and people in the marketplace lots of money and other resources. The Mueller investigation into the Russia Collusion scam by the Hilary Clinton campaign cost $32 million plus 2 ½ wasted years. Washington paid $80 billion to Pfizer for a self-styled CoViD “vaccine” that didn’t work and harmed the health of millions. 
The ACA cost $2.6 trillion. Bernie Sanders admits his Medicare-for-All plan could cost $40 trillion, which represents one-third of the combined productivity of all nations on Earth. 
Imagine how much more care providers could have given patients with $32 million plus $80 billion plus $2.6 trillion, or how much more money could stay in people’s pockets.

Every time Congress legislates a fix for our failing healthcare system, three things happen. First, they move us closer to national insolvency by spending trillions of more dollars we don’t have. Second, they worsen the doctor shortage and make it more difficult for families to pay expenses by taking money from paying care providers to compensate bureaucrats.  Third and worst, with each new regulation, access to medical care goes DOWN – the seesaw effect. Paraphrasing an old beer commercial, spend more, less care. 

This is why the old aphorism applies. Would you ask the fox to watch the henhouse? That is the same as expecting Washington to reduce healthcare spending.

Listen to my discussion with Mandy Connell. ​

And once again pass a giant Continuing Resolution to keep spending until the end of December. Do you really think they are going to craft and pass 12 spending bills before Christmas? No, they won't. That means either another Continuing Resolution or a giant pork filled Omnibus bill that allows everyone in Congress to hide the pork they are bringing back to their districts so they can keep getting re elected. I've got Former White House OMB Chief Economist, Vance Ginn, Ph.D., today at 2:30. We're talking about how Congress is pretending that there is not a spending crisis. It’s time to address the root issue — overspending. Excessive government spending and deficits lead to inflation, higher prices, and a weaker dollar. When the government runs deficits, the Federal Reserve prints more money by mostly buying Treasury securities to cover the deficit. Find Dr. Ginn's website and sign up for his newsletter here.

Originally published at Sen. Rand Paul's office website.

​WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, joined by Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (R-WY) and Congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC-08), introduced the Standing to Challenge Government Censorship Act. This bill will prohibit federal employees and contractors from using their positions to direct online platforms to censor First Amendment protected speech, reinforcing our collective commitment to safeguarding the constitutional rights of all American citizens. The Standing to Challenge Government Censorship Act is a streamlined iteration of the Free Speech Protection Act, tailored to address the standing issues highlighted in Murthy v. Missouri.

“Americans are a free people, and we do not take infringements upon our liberties lightly. Our Founding Fathers enshrined the First Amendment to protect our God-given right to free expression, recognizing its fundamental importance to a free society,” said Dr. Paul. “With the Standing to Challenge Government Censorship Act, we will strip away the barriers preventing judicial review of coercive government tactics that silence dissenting voices and ensure that no government official or contractor can undermine the First Amendment rights of Americans. We must confront and dismantle this censorship apparatus to protect our fundamental right to free speech.”

“I have repeatedly said that the government cannot do by proxy what it is prohibited from doing directly. This is exactly what happened with the Biden Administration pressuring social media companies to suppress the free speech of American citizens. The Standing to Challenge Government Censorship Act will not only ensure future litigants would have standing, but also would also apply to the plaintiffs in Murthy,” said Rep. Hageman. “Our forefathers ratified the First Amendment recognizing that government actors would always seek to control public discourse in order to protect their own power structure. No one has a monopoly on truth, and the Biden administration and federal agencies are not entitled to declare that American’s speech is ‘mis-information,’ ‘dis-information,’ or ‘mal-information’ and silence the message, especially when you consider how much accurate and truthful information was squelched during Covid-19 and the 2020 election. We will continue to fight to protect our First Amendment rights.” 

“Americans have a God-given right to free expression, and the constant attacks on the First Amendment from government bureaucrats make safeguarding that right all the more important. Malicious actors within government should never be allowed to silence and censor Americans, and Americans targeted by the Censorship Industrial Complex deserve their day in court. This legislation will ensure just that by removing barriers for judicial review and cracking down on those who aim to trample on the First Amendment,” said Rep. Bishop.

The bill would:

1. Empower individuals to sue government officials who coerce online platforms into censoring constitutionally protected speech.
2. Apply to past First Amendment violations and establish a presumption of liability for any government official attempting to pressure platforms into censorship, thereby overcoming the causality issue identified by the Supreme Court in Murthy.
3. Provide a vital mechanism for all Americans to protect their constitutional rights and challenge government overreach. It ensures that government officials are held accountable for any attempts to infringe upon our fundamental right to free speech.

Additional support:
“In the covid era, the federal government systematically suppressed legal online speech that contradicted its policy priorities, including criticism of covid misinformation spread by the government on topics like immunity, school closures, mask and covid vaccine effectiveness, vaccine injuries, and vaccine mandates. Given the recent failure of the Supreme Court to protect Americans against this threat to free speech rights, it is vital for Congress to act to secure the First Amendment. I am pleased that Sen. Paul has authored such a bill which will prohibit Federal employees and contractors from censoring legal speech. I encourage all law makers to support the bill,” said Jay Bhatthacharya MD, PhD., Stanford University and plaintiff in Murthy v. Missouri.

“Rights that cannot be vindicated in court are not rights at all. By closing the courthouse doors to Americans who are victimized by government censorship campaigns, Murthy invites the government to violate First Amendment rights at will—so long as it does so indirectly, utilizing numerous government agencies, rather than directly or through a single agency. Murthy essentially gives the government a blueprint on how to censor American citizens. This legislation says, ‘not so fast’,” said Bradley A. Smith, Chairman and Founder, Institute for Free Speech.

“As we inch closer to a crucial election in November, Congress should act swiftly to stop government censorship by proxy and protect Americans’ access to information. By restricting federal employees and contractors from encouraging platforms to suppress speech directly or indirectly, this bill is an important step in the right direction. Heritage Action applauds Sen. Paul for fighting government overreach and the weaponization of censorship on Big Tech platforms,” said Ryan Walker, Executive Vice President, Heritage Action.

“Let the people sue government officials who are working on the taxpayer dime to censor everyday Americans. Senator Paul is valiantly defending our Constitutional free speech rights. This bill is a no-brainer,” said L. Brent Bozell III, Founder and President, Media Research Center.

“Senator Rand Paul has introduced legislation allowing citizens to sue the federal government for censoring their speech, protecting First Amendment rights. For too long, federal entities have violated free speech using government power and funds. This bill ensures courts cannot dismiss these cases on standing grounds, preventing constitutional abuses. Senator Paul’s initiative is a crucial step in safeguarding free speech, a cornerstone of our free society,” said George Landrith, President, Frontiers of Freedom Institute.

“The Supreme Court’s failure to decide the Murthy v. Missouri case on the grounds that Missouri did not have standing in their attempt to protect their citizens against unconstitutional government censorship was a travesty. Senator Rand Paul’s introduction of legislation to provide states standing to sue on censorship cases would provide perhaps the only vehicle for broadly protecting free speech rights from the federal government coercing and suggesting censorship via corporate social media proxies. Americans for Limited Government proudly supports the Rand Paul legislation,” said Richard Manning, President, Americans for Limited Government.
​
“Senator Rand Paul has long been a champion of free speech and individual liberty, and this is on full display today with his legislation that will help preserve our freedoms that some in the federal government too often are trying to destroy,” said Vance Ginn, President of Ginn Economic Consulting and Former Chief Economist of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

“As social media has grown to allow Americans more free and unfettered speech online, there have been highly motivated efforts by government officials to limit speech online using both direct and indirect forms of coercion. This is a direct challenge to the spirit and future strength of the First Amendment. The Consumer Choice Center strongly supports Sen. Paul’s “Standing to Challenge Government Censorship Act” as a vehicle to end unconstitutional jawboning and hold public officials accountable when they aim to suppress public discourse and free expression online,” said Yael Ossowski, Deputy Director, Consumer Choice Center.

“The Standing to Challenge Government Censorship Act is a necessary corrective to the Supreme Court ruling that current law does not provide standing to victims of government-directed censorship to get their day in court. Congress should pass it quickly to allow citizens to appropriately defend their First Amendment rights,” said Phil Kerpen, President, American Commitment.

“No government should have the ability to control American free speech online or censor us from speaking. NetChoice applauds Sen. Paul for taking this important step to defend the First Amendment from government officials that abuse their power by trying to suppress open and free dialogue online. Sen. Paul’s bill makes it clear that Americans have the right to challenge the government for jawboning in court. NetChoice looks forward to working with Sen. Paul and the U.S. Senate to get this issue right so that Americans and businesses are protected from government interference when exercising their constitutionally-protected speech,” said Carl Szabo,Vice President & General Counsel, NetChoice.

“The recent decision in Murthy v. Missouri seemed to give government officials free rein to push social media companies to censor speech they dislike. Sen. Paul is stepping up to fix this by ensuring citizens have standing to sue when they do this. Free speech makes a comeback,” said Jim Hanson, Executive Director, America Matters.

Background:
On June 26, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in Murthy v. Missouri, a landmark First Amendment case, that the plaintiffs did not have standing to seek an injunction against government officials who attempted to pressure platforms into censoring speech related to COVID-19. The court’s decision hinged on the plaintiffs seeking an injunction against future censorship, rather than compensation for past violations of their First Amendment rights. However, the plaintiffs would not have been able to seek compensation, even if they wanted to, as the Supreme Court has consistently refused to acknowledge a cause of action allowing individuals to seek compensation from federal officials for past First Amendment violations.

Like countless other Americans, Dr. Paul was also targeted by the pervasive censorship regime during the pandemic. In 2021, Dr. Paul posted a video on YouTube to educate the public about the potentially harmful consequences of relying on ineffective cloth masks to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. YouTube took down his video and suspended his account for a week. This blatant suppression of dissenting views led him to announce that he was quitting the platform and would henceforth post his content on Rumble.com. 

You can read the bill HERE. 

Originally published at American Institute for Economic Research.

​The Economist recently compared Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s economic records, concluding Biden wins so far. While the article raises valid points, it excludes key details that make the findings questionable. 

Ten months from now, there’s a high likelihood Biden and Trump could go head-to-head again for the presidency, especially after the results from the Iowa caucus. But voters should be informed about the effects of their policies on key issues like immigration, inflation, and wages. 

Starting with a divisive bang, let’s look at each leader’s track record concerning immigration. 

The Economist correctly noted that apprehensions along the southern border were much lower under Trump. They increased by the most in 12 years during the economic expansion of 2019, decreased early in the COVID-19 pandemic when people could be turned away for public health concerns, and rose again during the lockdowns. 

While some may see apprehensions rising between Trump and Biden as a loss for Biden, I see it as a loss for both. 

This metric is somewhat unreliable, given one person can be caught and counted multiple times, and those caught are a subset of total migrants. The truth is immigration is good for the economy, but government failures create unnecessarily complex barriers against legal immigration, contributing to the humanitarian crisis along the Mexico border today. 

Neither President has pushed for what’s needed (market-based immigration reforms) both lose. 

Inflation is another hot topic, especially for Biden. 

The Economist hands the win to Trump, as inflation was far lower during his presidency. But can we give him the credit? 
Remember, Trump pressured the Federal Reserve to reduce its interest rate target and expand its balance sheet, which was inflationary. His deficit spending skyrocketed during the lockdowns and was mostly monetized by the Federal Reserve, contributing to what was always going to be persistent inflation. Biden made this deficit spending and resulting inflation much worse. 

Add in the Fed’s many questionable decisions, such as doubling its assets, cutting and maintaining a zero interest rate target for too long, and focusing too much on woke nonsense, and we can see how this was always going to be persistent inflation.

But even the Fed’s latest projections indicate it won’t hit its average inflation target of two percent until at least 2026. Likely, it will cut the current federal funds rate target range of 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent three times this year, keep a bloated balance sheet to finance massive budget deficits, and run record losses. If so, this inflation projection is too rosy.

Some of Trump’s policies helped stabilize prices, including his tax and regulation reductions. But he still allowed egregious spending. Biden has doubled down on red ink that has contributed to the recent 40-year-high inflation rate.

While inflation has been moderating recently under Biden, Trump gets the win. Of course, neither Presidents nor Congress control inflation, as that job is the Fed’s, but its fiscal policies influence it.  

When it comes to inflation-adjusted wages, The Economist grants a tie. 

Let’s consider real average weekly earnings that include hourly earnings and hours worked per week, adjusted for the chained consumer price index, which adjusts for the substitution bias and has been used for indexing federal tax brackets since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Trump’s era witnessed a robust upward trajectory of real earnings, with considerable gains by lower-income earners, thereby reducing income inequality. We must acknowledge a real wage spike in 2020 during Trump’s lockdowns, marked by the loss of 22 million jobs and various challenges. To maintain a fair analysis, I disregard this spike.

A year later, real wages demonstrated a decline under Biden. Extending the timeframe to two years later, real wages remain relatively flat to slightly increased. 

To provide a contextual understanding, when we consider the trend under Trump, excluding the 2020 spike, real wages for all private workers or production and nonsupervisory workers fall below those observed during Biden. It’s worth noting, however, that these wages have been higher since 2019, albeit nearly stagnant for all private workers. 

Given real earnings, I agree with The Economist that Trump and Biden are tied. 

While much more can be said for each President’s policies, continuing to add context when making assessments is crucial.

I give Trump a nuanced “win” overall because his policies supported more flourishing during his first three years until the terrible mistake of the COVID lockdowns, with its huge, long-term costs. I should note that I made a strong case inside the White House for no shutdowns and less government spending but, alas, my efforts, and those by others, lost to Fauci, Birx, and Trump. 

Given the improved purchasing power during his presidency, Trump receives better poll ratings than Biden after three years of their presidencies. But this win doesn’t mean that Trump’s record is best regarding these issues, protectionism, and more. 

Let’s hope free-market capitalism, the best path to let people prosper, is on display this November, no matter who is on the ballot. 

​Thank you for reading the Let People Prosper newsletter, which today includes the 12th episode of "This Week's Economy,” where I briefly share insights every Friday on key economic and policy news across the country.
​
Today, I cover:
1) National: New Pew Research poll reveals that inflation is the top concern for Americans on both sides of the political aisle, Fed needs to do more, and financial markets remain loose;
2) States: New state-level jobs report and which states are leading and breakdown of the largest spending increase in Texas history and why it's not good for keeping the Texas Model strong; and
3) Other: The importance of educating young audiences on capitalism and socialism and my experience teaching with a "minimum wage" game to a group of high school students.

​You can watch this episode and others along with my Let People Prosper Show on YouTube or listen to it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, or Anchor. Please share, subscribe, like, and leave a 5-star rating!
​
For show notes, thoughtful insights, media interviews, speeches, blog posts, research, and more, check out my website (https://www.vanceginn.com/) and please subscribe to my newsletter (www.vanceginn.substack.com), share this post, and leave a comment.

​Today, I'm honored to be joined by Leslie Ford, adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility and a senior fellow with the Alliance for Opportunity.

We discuss:
1) The history of the war on poverty, how safety net programs have evolved, and where the war on poverty stands today;
2) How safety net programs can discourage upward mobility and keep people trapped in poverty through penalties such as those on marriage; and
3) Data on what requirements help safety net recipients achieve long-lasting self-sufficiency and prosperity, and more.
​
You can watch this interview on YouTube or listen to it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, or Anchor. Please share on social media, subscribe to your favorite platform and my newsletter, like it, and leave a 5-star rating.

​

• Leslie Ford is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility. She is also president of Ford Policy Solutions and a member of the State Board of Social Services at the Virginia Department of Social Services.
• Ms. Ford previously served in the White House as a domestic policy adviser and special assistant to the president from 2018 to 2020. During that time, she worked on the development of the Trump administration’s welfare and antipoverty strategic agenda and on reforms to US social safety-net programs. Before joining the White House, Ms. Ford was a legislative adviser to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). While working on Capitol Hill, she oversaw the development of 22 pieces of legislation and more than 50 amendments on significant bills to advance health and welfare reforms. Ms. Ford started her career at the Heritage Foundation.
• Ms. Ford has been published in the Wall Street Journal and National Review. She holds a BA from the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Find show notes, thoughtful economic insights, media interviews, speeches, blog posts, research, and more at my website and here in my Substack newsletter. Please subscribe to this newsletter, share it with your friends and family, and leave me a comment.