President Biden is spending the holidays with his family this year in a beautiful mansion in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Afterwards, he will visit Italy and meet with Pope Francis among other dignitaries.
In addition to his jet-setting, Biden has been particularly busy during the final few weeks of his presidency. Fortunately, a judge thwarted Biden from selling pieces of the border wall for a fraction of its value, but he will be successful in providing $1.25 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, his favorite foreign project.
Last Monday, he signed 50 pieces of legislation and welcomed the confirmation of his 235th federal judge, surpassing the total number of judicial confirmations during President Donald Trump’s administration.
As Biden and his family vacation in luxury, Americans are struggling due to his damaging economic policies. This holiday season, 36% of Americans incurred an average debt of $1,181 for their Christmas gifts, more than 13% higher than last year.
With these bills, it is understandable that 28% of Americans have not paid off the balances from purchases made during last year’s holiday season. Overall, for stressed Americans, total credit card debt exceeded $1.17 trillion in the third quarter of the year, which is an increase of 8.1% from 2023.
According to Matt Schultz, LendingTree’s Chief Credit Analyst, the culprit is inflation, which is “having a huge impact on people’s finances, including their holiday spending.” Schultz notes that “so many Americans took on debt this holiday season” because “prices are still…high and that means that lots of Americans simply didn’t have any choice.”
Our grim economy was created by President Biden, who gave Americans a persistently high inflation rate, mostly due to his reckless federal spending. He added over $8.5 trillion to our national debt, which now exceeds $36.2 trillion or over $271,000 per American taxpayer.
The obscene federal spending must be addressed by the new Trump administration. If so, inflation and interest rates should return to levels experienced during the first Trump term.
Under Biden, the American dream became unattainable as inflation and interest rates outpaced wage growth and families fell into deeper debt. Moreover, housing costs skyrocketed during the Biden era with the average home valued at 7.64 times “greater than median household income.”
Not surprisingly, Bidenomics created an economic nightmare for many beleaguered Americans, who were unable to afford a home. Thus, 770,000 Americans were homeless last year, a tragic 18.1% increase over 2023. This does not include Americans forced to live “with friends or family because they do not have a place of their own.”
The substantial increase in homelessness last year followed a 12% increase in 2023. While some experts blamed a variety of factors such as extreme weather events, the inescapable conclusion is that Biden’s economic policies drove up rents and mortgages, making housing unaffordable for an increasing number of Americans.
Another factor causing the increase in homelessness was Biden’s irresponsible border policies. A recent report issued by the House Committee on Homeland Security revealed that from Fiscal Year 2021 through Fiscal Year 2024, the number of encounters with undocumented migrants reached 10.8 million, compared to only 3 million in the previous four years.
Additionally, there were approximately 2 million undocumented migrants who entered the country in the last four years without encountering U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This is an incredible 400% increase from the previous four years. These horrific policies impacted the northern border as well, which experienced a 600% increase in encounters with undocumented migrants compared to the previous four years.
Overall, the huge influx of noncitizens caused housing headaches in states across the country, impacting large cities, such as Denver, Chicago, and New York City the most. In these large cities and 10 others, family homelessness “more than doubled” last year. Sadly, on a single night in 2024, 150,000 children were homeless last year, a 33% increase from 2023.
With the open border, violent crime, drug overdose deaths, severe economic problems, homelessness and unnecessary wars raging internationally, it is not surprising that only 19% of Americans are satisfied with “the way things are going in the United States at this time.” In contrast, 79% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Who can blame these angry Americans? Their disgust is reasonable considering the damage Biden has created during his nightmarish term in office.
Nevertheless, Biden lives in a dream world, not reality. He truly insists he is popular, and the American people would have elected him to another term as President. In a recent piece by the Washington Post, reporter Tyler Pager writes that Biden has confided in friends that he is confident he could have defeated Trump in November.
Despite his disastrous debate performance, his horrible approval numbers, the dismal state of the economy and the world, Biden somehow believes that he could have won. In fact, the debate exposed his mental incompetence to the entire country.
He should not have even tried to run and should have announced much earlier that he would only serve one term. Even U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) criticized Biden’s desire to serve another term. He told the Washington Post, “Biden ran on the promise that he was going to be a transitional president, and in effect, have one term before handing it off to another generation.”
Unfortunately for Democrats, but fortunately for the country, Biden’s ego was too large to gracefully bow out of another race early. He wanted to prove to Democratic Party insiders, big donors, and his critics that he could defeat Trump.
Instead, he was humiliated in a nationally televised debate and his successor lost an electoral vote landslide to Trump, who became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote since 2004.
Thankfully, the Biden nightmare is almost over for Americans. With President Trump’s sound economic policies, once again, the American dream will be obtainable for families who have spent the last four years struggling.
Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America’s Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-9 a.m. & 6-7 p.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America’s Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com
