After four years of inflation, Democrats now have the answer?
Posted By RichC on December 20, 2025
Democrats are suddenly discovering “affordability” as their new talking point now that Republicans control the White House and Congress. It’s a remarkable pivot—after four years of presiding over the worst inflation in four decades, they’re lecturing 
Americans about the cost of living.
The record is unambiguous: consumer prices rose cumulatively by more than 21% during the Biden-Harris administration, compared to roughly 8% during Trump’s first term. That isn’t a temporary blip or a “global phenomenon” America alone suffered—it’s a permanent shift upward in the cost of essentials. Groceries, energy, housing, vehicles: everything families buy is meaningfully more expensive today than it was in January 2021, and those higher prices are now baked in as the new baseline—and much of it in 2025 still left over from the previous administrations’ policies.
This surge didn’t happen by accident. It followed trillions in new federal spending pushed through when Democrats held unified control of government, combined with restrictive energy policies and regulatory bottlenecks that constrained supply at exactly the moment demand was being supercharged. Inflation wasn’t “transitory” as they repeatedly claimed—it was persistent, painful and entirely foreseeable.
Real wages fell for most American workers during the height of the inflation, meaning families weren’t just seeing higher price tags; they were losing ground even as they worked harder. Only in the final stretch, after the political damage was done, did annual inflation readings cool—but the cumulative hit to purchasing power remains.
Now, with voters having decisively rejected that economic record in 2024, Democrats want to pose as the champions of affordable living. The timing is convenient, but the hypocrisy is glaring. When prices were spiraling, the focus from the White House and congressional Democrats was on downplaying the problem, redefining “recession,” or blaming everything from corporate greed to Putin. Affordability wasn’t a priority then.
Republicans now have the opportunity—and the mandate—to reverse course: unleash American energy production, cut burdensome regulations, secure the border to ease pressure on housing and public services, and pursue pro-growth trade and tax policies that bring jobs and investment home. These steps won’t deliver instant relief (some, like strategic tariffs, may involve short-term adjustments), but they attack the root causes of stagnation and high costs in ways the previous administration never seriously attempted.
Americans aren’t looking for lectures on affordability from the architects of the inflation era. They’re looking for results—and the new majority in Washington has both the responsibility and the political capital to deliver them.
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Submitted as commentary to TheHustings.news
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