Heading into midterm season, voters are experiencing Trump’s economic illiteracy first hand, even as Trump, embarrassingly, keeps blaming Biden. If he hadn’t elevated personal loyalty over professional competence when choosing his cabinet, staff would advise him that blaming a long gone predecessor makes Trump look weak, but he did, so they don’t, and here we are.

Trump’s illegal tariffs and un-strategized war in Iran have caused prices to skyrocket globally. His tariffson essential inputs like steel, aluminum, and clean energy components have driven up operational expenses across the power sector, raising costs that are then passed down to consumers. His war in Iran has also elevated the price of oil energy, travel, and consumer borrowing costs. As global oil markets face increased volatility, prices for gasoline, diesel, heating oil, airfares, and mortgage rates remainsignificantly higher than their pre-war baselines. 

Americans are also just beginning to enjoy Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB), signed into law in July 2025 with staggered effective dates. The bill delivered the largest cuts to food assistance, health care, education, and student loan services in U.S. history, in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. Can you say oligarchic coup?

The BBB also gave a major boost to the superyacht, private jet, and private luxury travel sectors. Massive tax and regulatory gifts freed cash at the top, allowing the top 1% to spend their money on toys for the uber rich, like superyachts. By restoring 100% first-year bonus depreciation for qualifying “business assets” like superyachts and jets, following the BBB’s passage, demand skyrocketed as affluent buyers and charter operators rushed to utilize the tax write-off, helping superyacht sales explode.

Trump’s Big Bill: Beautiful if you’re rich, downright ugly if you’re not

Despite clearly contracting economic indicators, Trump continues to call the affordability crisis a “hoax,” and a fake narrative manufactured by Democrats, much to the consternation of any Republican candidate not guaranteed re-election through gerrymandering. But numbers don’t lie, which may explain Trump’s aversion to them. 

The law cut roughly $187 billion from SNAP food assistance, the largest cuts to SNAP in the history of the program, with reductions phasing in between 2026 and 2028, after the midterms. Economists expect these cuts to increase poverty, food insecurity, and hunger among low-income communities.

On the healthcare side, over 11 million Americans are expected to lose their eligibility for Medicaid by 2034 due to increased work-reporting requirements, shorter certification periods, and new copays for poor adults who are living at or just above the poverty line. Republicans claim the cuts will reduce waste, fraud, and abuse and encourage people to work, but the cuts fall almost entirely on low-income working households while the benefits accrue to higher earners.

The exploding national debt is another Trump disaster.  The national debt rose by a staggering $7.8 trillion during the first Trump administration, the third-biggest increase of “any U.S. presidential administration…” This year, the national debt exceeds $37 trillion, despite draconian program cuts nationwide, thanks to Republicans’ out of control spending on Iran, ICE, and building a police state, along with tax gifts to the rich. This debt is not sustainable.

So what are the GOP’s plans to address consumer prices, other than leaving the bill for our children?

Despite the obvious cause and effect of Trump’s tariffs, war in Iran, Big Beautiful Bill, and overall administrative incompetence, Trump continues to blame Biden for nearly every current economic ill. Earlier this week, Trump told supporters in Michigan that the affordability problems they were experiencing were “vestiges of the Biden administration,” then devoted most of his speech to lying about what the United States could look like if “Dumocrats” or “Dumbocrats” win this fall. “I’m one day in office,” he brayed, “and the fake news goes affordability, affordability!’” His audience roared in appreciative laughter. 

Trump lacks the economic acumen to understand or care that Biden inherited a covid economic crisis in 2021, and spurred the strongest economic and labor market recovery in modern history.  With limited bi-partisan support, Biden modeled the economic recovery package of FDR with his left hand, while galvanizing NATO’s response to Russia with his right. The resulting infrastructure, chips, and manufacturing initiatives had not been seen in the US in half a century. Trump can’t compete, at least not with anyone outside the Fox propaganda network.

So this year, instead of addressing costs, inflation, and a faltering economy, the GOP is relying on messaging instead. But fear not, all is not lost. Superyacht sales in the US rose by over 40% following Trump’s first tax giveaway, and continue to rise under Trump 2.0. Surely- hopefully- eventually- someday, that staggering wealth will start to trickle down.

Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.