An analyst warns the "Trump-inflicted damage" to the U.S. economy will backfire on the Republican Party because "Americans are not fooled."
In an opinion piece for MSNBC, Helaine R. Olen, author of "Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry," outlines how President Donald Trump's campaign promises to bring prices down and improve the economy hasn't happened.
"Now that Trump is in the White House, Republicans are making the same mistake as Democrats during Joe Biden’s presidency: trying to convince voters that the economy is better than it is. It didn’t work for Democrats, and it won’t work for Republicans and Trump," Olen writes.
Hiring rates are down, beef prices are increased and health insurance costs are climbing — and voters are still feeling the sting of inflation. But that's not the only problem.
"There is other Trump-inflicted damage that will likely come home to roost," she writes. "Medicaid cutbacks to the states will filter downward. And his campaign promise to bring down utility bills was no match for his determination to stick it to environmentalists. White House rollbacks of clean energy initiatives are a factor in the nation’s surging household utility bills, up 10 percent since he took office, while Trump has studiously ignored the issue of Americans getting stuck with the bill for the vast amounts of electricity used by artificial intelligence data centers."
And although overall spending has risen, it's clear the Republican strategy of trying to persuade Americans that the economy is better than it is doesn't work, she explains.
"Trump, our wealthiest president ever, appears all but blind to that truth," Olen writes. "When the economy finally goes wrong — whether the AI bubble finally collapses, or private credit defaults eat away at the stock market, or something else entirely — it will mean political pain for the GOP. Yet the real pain will be felt not by politicians, but average Americans."