President Trump has kept many of his promises, using as his playbook Project 2025, which he claimed to know nothing about during the campaign. Except for the one vow that may have earned him your vote: “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one.”
His promise was disingenuous. He knew when he made it that he would be essentially powerless to lower grocery prices, and he is. We can’t blame him for the fact that eggs now average over $7 a dozen, an all-time high, though firing the inspectors employed to keep our food supply safe certainly won’t help.
But other actions are guaranteed to cost us all more, and the president and his administration know it, even if they won’t admit it. And he makes no bones about intending much of the money we’ll lose to extend tax relief to the millionaires and billionaires who are his cronies.
Deporting millions of migrants will raise prices as the country scrambles to find workers to fill jobs in construction, agriculture, food, service, and home healthcare that are undesirable to the rest of us.
So will rescinding the deal his predecessor brokered to lower prices on prescription drugs for conditions like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes for those on Medicare or Medicaid. This action directly siphons money away from consumers and gives it to drug companies. At least one Wisconsin man died after the cost of his asthma inhaler skyrocketed, and more deaths will certainly follow. If you are on Medicaid, perhaps through the State’s recent expansion, the administration is coming for it. If you receive SNAP or WIC, likewise. Any benefits for middle- or lower-class Americans, including Social Security, are on the chopping block.
Then there are the new tariffs against countries like China and allies like Mexico and Canada that didn’t work during the first Trump administration and won’t work now. They may benefit the owners of big businesses, like steel manufacturers, but they will hurt individual consumers. Economists estimate the action will cost the average American $1200 each year—$100 out of your pocket every month—perhaps more, as the targeted countries retaliate with tariffs of their own. As a representative of the EU said recently, the tariffs will be “bad for business and worse for the consumer.” Regressive costs mean the less you earn, the more you will suffer—as if the goods you need aren’t expensive enough already. Prices are already rising on construction materials, so your kids can forget that first house they were saving for, and new car prices will escalate, too, because of tariffs on materials like steel.
The administration is eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Its failing? Returning over $20 billion to working people’s pockets and protecting consumers from fraud or deception by predatory financial institutions. More money out of our pockets and more risk of financial harm.
And if the administration shutters the Department of Education as it wishes? Pain and suffering for low-income rural public schools in districts like ours. No more Federal student loans and the end of over $1 trillion of student aid. In the U.S., only the rich could once afford college, and without these government loans, that could once again be true.
The courts halted the federal funding freeze initiated by the President, but the administration promised to keep the funds frozen anyway because it rejects the principle of balance among the three branches of government guaranteed by the Constitution. (Congress is taking it all lying down, and we can’t expect help there.) The 2,600 federal agencies handcuffed by the freeze are far too long to list here. But billions of dollars in aid to those in need, including money for clinics for the uninsured and juvenile justice, domestic violence, and drug treatment programs; medical research; and environmental protections disappeared at a stroke of the President’s pen. Farmers were also left on the hook when USDA funds were frozen.
This is not a president who cares about your wallet or your financial future. For average middle-class Americans, Trump’s promise to Make America Great Again will come with a high price tag.
Editor’s note: The views in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Laurinburg Exchange.