Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings

A Guide To The Realities Of The Past (Almost) 4 Years

Editor’s note: I swear I’m not making a habit of this, but it’s been a quiet weekend at The White House, save for President Biden and his advisors keeping tabs on the unfolding situation between Israel and Hezbollah. So, I thought I’d provide some “truth bombs” about how things have been going since January 2021. Thanks for reading!

Here's a dose of reality: Border crossings are down over 55% and are lower than four years ago after the previous POTUS enacted Title 42.

Wages have outpaced inflation (now under 3%) for 12 months straight.

Violent crime has dropped to its lowest in 3 decades.

America is producing net positive energy, with oil companies making higher profits than during the previous administration (which explains the higher prices. Blame them!).

During this administration, Mexico has contributed $1.5B toward border surveillance and technology that works.

Beginning in January, out-of-pocket Medicare costs will drop from a maximum of $8500 to $2000, and prices will fall for the top 10 prescription drugs because Medicare can now negotiate the price.

For people complaining about the "high prices," restaurants and grocery stores are still full of people, gas stations are doing brisk business, and travel destinations are setting records. The costs Americans are saddled with that the government CAN have control over, such as long-term student debt, credit card/travel/cable/event ticket junk fees, and anti-trust/corporate monopolies, have been regularly thwarted by conservatives in government and the courts.

Someone I know (For real, not just some made-up thing I’m writing to make a point!), posted “I’m 74 years old and inflation has NEVER been this high in my lifetime!”

Oh, Jane! In fact, inflation has been higher than its current figure of 2.9% in 36 of the 74 years you’ve been alive!

Another poster (Whom I don’t know, but responded to a friend’s thread on Facebook):

“What was inflation before the last 12 months? Food costs are up 20% from 4 years ago. Gas prices are up over 30%. Mortgage rates are up 100%.”

Answers:

First question: What does it matter what inflation was in the prior 12 months? But for what it’s worth, the US economy has improved faster than any other country post-pandemic.

Second question: Food prices and profits from the food industry are up, while per-unit sales are down. This is the textbook definition of “greedflation.”

Gas prices are up over 30%. Ask the oil companies that have made higher profits since 2021 than they did in the previous four years why their prices are so high!

Mortgage rates are up 100%: And? Here’s why raising interest rates isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Hey, we kept them artificially low during the Great Recession.

Interestingly, during Barack Obama’s second term in office, inflation rates were less than half of what they were under Donald Trump. Yet the right's praise for Obama's turnaround of the economy after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is non-existent.

Finally, there is no factual evidence to show that the rising inflation that occurred as the Pandemic began to subside in 2021 would have been any different under Donald Trump. He can talk all he wants (as he usually does), but there is no magic wand in the bottom left-hand drawer of the Resolute Desk to magically make things happen for the better, so no one (including him) really knows what he’s talking about.

The hard fact is that Donald Trump was handed an EXCELLENT economy by his predecessor, and in four years, he was lucky enough not to mess it up. The only major legislation enacted during his term was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which permanently lowered the corporate tax rate to 21%. Hey, guess what? Any benefit you PERSONALLY may have received from this act will expire next year.

Despite all of this, MAGA still wants the guy with 34 felony convictions who can tell 162 lies in 64 minutes and who tried very hard to overturn the election he lost (To name a few. I don’t have time to list all of his disqualifiers!) to be in charge of the rest of us.

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Another “truth bomb about inflation and the price of groceries