While Democrats have a shiny new toy to play with in Vice President Kamala Harris being anointed without a single vote to the 2024 Democratic nomination, reality still looks pretty ugly on the ground.
President Biden was already nosediving due to several economic factors, inflation being the leader, and none of that has changed or will change with Harris now seemingly at the top of the ticket.
This is the story of the Biden-Harris administration, and it’s a doozy.
To begin, while big cities are usually bastions for blue votes, some voters, especially younger ones, are finding it impossible to buy a house:
“A $1 million starter home? It’s the norm in 237 cities”
The typical “starter home” — defined for this analysis as being among those in the lowest third of home values in a given region — is worth at least $1 million in 237 cities, the highest number of cities ever. Five years ago, there were only 84 such cities.
Nationwide, the typical starter home is worth $196,611, which is comfortably affordable for a median-income household. But a housing shortage that worsened over the pandemic helped drive the cost of all homes to new heights. Starter home values have grown 54.1% over the past five years, even more than the 49.1% increase for the typical U.S. home in the same time frame. That has delayed the first home purchase for many. The median age of a first-time home buyer was 35 last year, a year older than in 2019.
“Home buyers are battling affordability and availability today. So much so that $1 million is the norm for a starter home in hundreds of cities,” said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow.
Yes, Covid inflated home prices, no question. The rest of the equation came from Biden’s inflationary policies at the beginning of his term that poured gasoline on the fire.
Next, for all the talk of a “roaring” economy, the underlying fundamentals from major everyday consumer brands aren’t singing from the same hymnal:
“Cost-of-Living Crisis Hits Sales of Food, Cars, Luxury Goods”
From food producers to airlines, automakers to luxury houses, evidence of the impact is piling up. Whether it’s US grocery shoppers tapped out after a period of punishing inflation or wealthy Chinese customers postponing their next splurge, the effects are rippling across the corporate landscape.
Nestle SA, the world’s biggest food company, cut its revenue outlook for the year on Thursday, while Unilever Plc reported sales that missed estimates and Jeep-owner Stellantis NV posted a plunge in profit. A day before, US appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. lowered its earnings forecast, while big US airlines have warned that cut-rate airfares are weighing on sales and profits.
A cost-of-living crisis has taken its toll on shoppers who’ve traded down to cheaper brands, and consumer giants have struggled to coax them back. Around 80% of US shoppers are reducing grocery spending, according to a recent poll of 1,000 people who broadly represent the US demographic by Savings.com, a website that offers coupons.
Whatever Joe Biden is doing to “make things affordable for the middle class,” it’d be nice if he’d stop doing it.
The big lie is that Democrats care about affordability at all. They don’t and it shows in their agenda. Driving up the price of automobiles by imposing electric vehicle mandates hurts every consumer, yet Democrats don’t care.
Imposing new “green” energy agenda rules drives up prices for those who can least afford it, and Democrats don’t care.
The price of everyday essentials has increased tenfold under Joe Biden and yet he pretends as if he’s going to “keep fighting” to bring down prices. It’s a lie, and Kamala Harris is a double-down of the lie.
Then there’s the “kids” question. Population decline is a direct result of left-wing policies and beliefs that somehow the planet needs everyone to have fewer children. Furthermore, the economic reality of Biden’s failed policies makes it more and more expensive to buy your million-dollar starter home and diapers at the same time:
“Kids? A Growing Number of Americans Say, ‘No Thanks.’”
Like Ms. McKay, a growing number of U.S. adults say they are unlikely to raise children, according to a study released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center. When the survey was conducted in 2023, 47 percent of those younger than 50 without children said they were unlikely ever to have children, an increase of 10 percentage points since 2018.
When asked why kids were not in their future, 57 percent said they simply didn’t want to have them.
In the Pew study, most of those surveyed said that not having kids had made it easier for them to afford the things they wanted, make time for their interests and save for the future.
In other words, people are choosing between having kids or going on nice vacations because it’s harder to have both when the price of literally everything around you has skyrocketed. This is a problem Democrats don’t intend to solve because this is an acceptable and even desired result related to their climate agenda.
Finally, as the “Border Czar,” a title bestowed upon her by President Biden in 2021, Kamala Harris has failed at one of the most basic jobs of the federal government, keeping the country secure:
“Illegal border crossings from Mexico reach highest on record in December before January lull”
Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico reached an all-time high in December since monthly numbers have been released, authorities said Friday, exposing a growing vulnerability for President Joe Biden in his campaign for a second term.
The Border Patrol tallied 249,785 arrests on the Mexican border in December, up 31% from 191,112 in November and up 13% from 222,018 in December 2022, the previous all-time high.
The low-key “open border” policy enacted by the Biden administration simply encourages more and more border crossings. It’s a death spiral that sees no end in sight under a Democrat president.
The country is sick in a lot of ways and Biden’s presidency has made it much, much worse.
This reality needs to be tied to Kamala Harris every hour of every day.
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