The latest political rage is the “Affordability Crisis” – which basically means inflation is eating away at your paycheck.

Ironically, the people who most loudly proclaim the Affordability Crisis are usually the ones who caused the problem in the first place by supporting over-spending and over-regulation by the Government. They also think the answer is (curiously) more spending and more regulation.

Under President Joe Biden, inflation averaged over 5% per year, with one year being over 9%. By comparison, Trump 47 reduced it to 2.7%, but still more must be done to reverse the previous damage.

Biden’s attack on fossil fuels stifled production and inflated American energy prices. His promise to “end fossil fuels” wasted trillions of dollars on useless Wind and Solar, which inevitably inflated energy costs, making it less affordable to consumers. Remember $5 per gallon?

Biden’s COVID shutdown destroyed productivity and hence caused production shortages – leading to more inflation.

In 2022 the Democrat Congress pushed Biden’s massive $2 trillion (so-called) Inflation Reduction Act – IRA. They actually claimed to fight inflation by printing money! The result was stagflation – a stagnant economy with more inflation. Only Jimmy Carter ever duplicated that feat.

Biden’s IRA increased taxes by about $1 trillion, thereby taking resources away from job-creating private investment. Biden then added nearly 100,000 non-productive Government jobs, enabling bureaucrats to eat from the economic pie, while contributing nothing to it. Hint: More inflation. That’s chutzpah!

The (Un)Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – was so poorly designed that it cannot survive without massive additional subsidies. President Barack Obama promised it would save us $2,500 per year, but it actually doubled our healthcare premiums, while making Health Insurance Executives very wealthy. Was Obama ignorant or deliberately dishonest?

Health care is the second-highest component of U.S. inflation (behind colleges – also highly subsidized), but Biden’s COVID policies made it worse. Big Pharma profited hundreds of billions of dollars on defective, and fraud-ridden COVID Vaccines and deadly therapeutics like Remdesivir. Perhaps purchasing Sen. Liz Warren’s influence was Big Pharma’s best investment. Warren personally profited millions while ranting against “millionaires and billionaires.”

Thanks to Biden’s open border policy, our health care system has been overwhelmed by illegals that don’t pay their own way, while working Americans wait in line for care they actually paid for. Do Dems really care about affordability?

A recent study showed that half of New York City is on Medicaid, with 32% of public housing and 40% of New York City rent-controlled units being occupied by foreign nationals. Hence, American citizens are forced to subsidize housing and Medicaid for foreign nationals. Clearly, affordability problems are the direct result of Dem policies, and Mamdani is about to make it worse. The irony is rich.

So-called “experts” insisted that Trump’s retaliatory tariffs would raise prices. Those tariffs did not inflate prices, but did bring jobs and production back home. The threat of retaliatory tariffs recently forced India to end all tariffs on US products. It’s fun to watch the talking heads on TV try to explain away their economic incompetence.

Under Biden, $80 billion was lost to fraudulent small business loans, and another $200 billion was lost to fraudulent COVID “economic injury” grants – where the “injuries” were caused by Biden’s lockdowns. Yet, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer has openly vowed to reinstate the taxpayer rip-offs if he regains power. How seriously can we take the Dem’s rhetoric about affordability?

The Washington Times just reported that 61% of illegal immigrant households are receiving Welfare benefits. Who is paying for that?

In Minnesota alone, investigators found $9 billion in Social Services fraud, while nearly a $1 billion in welfare cash was shipped overseas, likely funding Somali Al-Shabaab terrorists, while Biden pretended not to see. Somali ISIS recruits used US education loans to pay for their travel to the Middle East, courtesy of US taxpayers.

Minnesota Gov. Walz claims federal investigations into state fraud constitute “White Supremacy.” Hence, Walz is admitting the fraud is being perpetrated by people of color. He should know, but he sounds like a racist blaming people of color to deflect from his own complicity in the fraud.

Newly minted Virginia Dem Gov. Abigail Spanberger just announced that she will deal with affordability by increasing taxes, adding 40 new taxes, pushing DEI, and wasting more taxpayer money on hyper-expensive “green” energy. You can’t make stuff this up.

If affordability is a problem, why don’t state Dems slash the budget (and taxes) by 40% to bring it in line with other states? Why does New York annually spend $37,000 per student in public schools, when better-performing private schools costs half that?

If NY Dems are concerned about affordability, why do they force taxpayers to subsidize hyper-expensive Wind/Solar/BESS projects that will have no effect on climate, but will chase businesses and people out of NYS?

Obviously, the Left doesn’t care about affordability. It’s merely Kabuki Theater to fool gullible people.

On a happier note, rental costs are down 6.5% across the nation since ICE began removing illegals, hence improving affordability for Americans.

Michael Dee is a Silver Creek resident while Scott Axelson lives in Jamestown.