Donald Trump's broken promises on the cost of things
Eggs, cars, gas, mortgages: All up. Should we have expected any different?
By Jeff Nesbit
Donald Trump likes to promise things. He likes to boast, and brag, and talk about how he’s going to do this or that. And his biggest promise before election day 2024—the promise that got him elected president—was that he’d bring the cost of things like groceries, cars, homes and other essential consumer goods down immediately.
So, let’s take a look.
Today, the cost of one of the most basic staples of the American diet—eggs—is now 50% higher than it was on election day 2024. The average price of a dozen large grade A eggs in February was $5.90, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's up from $4.95 in January and $4.15 in December and $3.65 in November.
OK, then, how about the cost of buying homes? Well, it’s now higher for everyone in America than it was at the end of the Biden administration. Interest rates for 30-year fixed loans were at 6.25% on Election Day 2024. Today, in mid-March, the current average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate is 6.71% (at time of publication), and likely inching back up toward 7%.
So, the cost of basic grocery items like eggs hasn’t gone down. The cost of buying a home hasn’t gone down. So, surely, Trump has moved the needle immediately on gas prices, the thing GOP politicians love to talk about endlessly, right?
Not exactly. The average price of a gallon of gas in America hit a nearly all-time high of $4.93 in June 2022, midway through President Joe Biden’s term in office. GOP politicians pounced and made a huge deal about it. But, gradually, as Biden’s anti-inflationary economic policies started to take root, gas prices fell. The average price of a gallon of gas had fallen to $3.05 by Election Day.
Biden never got any credit for this, largely because Trump and his campaign surrogates had spent a year loudly bleating about gas prices that had hit a high 18 months earlier. When they hit $3.05, Trump and his campaign went silent.
And now? Gas prices started rising again in January, Trump’s first month in office. The average price hit $3.16 in February. And though they dipped slightly in March, the average price is still higher than it was on Election Day.
Well, surely, Trump’s economic policies have put downward pressure on the prices of cars and trucks? Well, no. According to Kelley Blue Book, the average price for a new car in the United States in July 2024 was $48,401. Car prices had been falling for a year by then. But during Trump’s first month in office, the average new car buyer in America paid $49,740, close to an all-time high.
And it’s going to get worse if Trump follows through with his tariffs that will raise the price of the steel critical to car manufacturing. Truck prices jumped $20,000 as soon as Trump threatened tariffs on steel imports. “I had a sold order for a customer. An $80,000 truck. It’s $100,000 now,” a car dealership owner in Pennsylvania told Fox Business on March 6.
OK, so the cost of buying groceries, homes and cars has gone up under Trump—despite his grandiose promises—and shows signs of soaring even higher thanks to the tariffs on building materials like steel and lumber that go into home-building and car-making.
Surely voters believed all of Trump’s boasts, brags and promises and are fully expecting that things will be better and brighter now in America. Right? Well, no, according to a recent Morning Consult poll. Their key finding? Nearly 90% of consumers said they were “very concerned” (61%) or “somewhat concerned” (29%) about grocery and food prices. That number—90%—is a bright, blaring red flag of consumer unease.
Meanwhile, concern over consumer prices is more important to people than whether they can secure a good-paying job. Morning Consult found that 61% of respondents said they would prefer that prices of goods and services go down instead of their income increasing (39%). “Consumers (clearly) want price declines today,” the firm said of its analysis.
OK, so the prices of basic consumer items are going up, not down, and average Americans are quite concerned. Surely the elite traders, economists and Wall Street executives who follow economic news are confident in Trump’s boasts, brags, and promises?
Well, again, no. The stock market entered “correction” territory in just a matter of weeks as Trump promised tariffs, lifted them, threatened them again, lifted them again, and then promised even higher tariffs again.
And “correction” is a kind word for what’s happening – namely that the stock market lost 10 percent of its value as it tried to sort through the rubble of Trump’s trade war (and real war) threats and antics that are roiling global markets.
There are other indications, too, that all is not well in Trump’s economy. Biden’s economic team had managed to tame inflationary pressures by Election Day. Trump’s economic team has squandered that economic foundation.
The inflation rate for all items, including food and energy, in September 2024 was 2.4%. In February, under Trump, it’s now back up to 2.8%.
So, if consumers aren’t happy, and Wall Street isn’t happy, surely voters must be happy that Trump has declared war on elite centers of higher education, threatened to deport 12 million immigrants, set out to destroy the federal bureaucracy and waded into fringe culture wars while hawking red Tesla cars on the White House lawn?
Not exactly. Latino voters, for instance, who looked past their fears about border security and immigration police tactics to Trump’s promises of lower costs and a path toward economic freedom are wondering about that grand bargain right now – especially his attacks on elite colleges that offer a bootstrap to the American dream.
“Working-class people appreciate kids going to college, especially kids that came from poverty going to college, because that’s part of the American dream,” freshman Senator Reuben Gallego (D-Ariz.) recently told The New York Times. “You need that kind of hope to hang on to, to get through those hard days, knowing that things will get better.”
Trump promised that he would lower the cost of things for average Americans when he came back into power. Instead, he has set out to destroy the federal government, threatened media outlets, paved the way for tax cuts for billionaires, harassed higher education with endless culture wars and budget threats, and simply lost the plot on consumer prices.
We’re all paying a higher price—and higher prices—as a result.
Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.
Forget all that--what about the cost savings from Musk's government destruction?
1. The cost of ferrying deportees to Guantanamo must've been awful; they quit doing it.
2. We are paying millions of dollars right now to house deportees in a Salvadoran jail--millions. There's a real savings, not.
3. They fired and then rehired 25,000 workers, with more on the way. Then they will fire them again. Do you have any idea what it costs to offload and onboard employees? You probably do. No cost savings.
4. They ordered the remaining federal hostag--er, wage slaves back to the offices that had already been downsized under Joe Biden to cut costs, now increasing overhead for the government and tons of expense for workers. This raised costs all around. Remote work WAS the cost savings, jerkos.
5. Committing illegal acts immediately drew lawsuits; now taxpayers will have to pay to defend the government's losing arguments. Costs, up.
6. Throwing thousands more people out of work and onto government assistance only shifts costs to states--it doesn't make them disappear for taxpayers. Costs, up. Ditto with trying to dismantle FEMA.
7. I can't stand this anymore. You get the frickin picture. Have a good day, my friends, somehow.
On-the-ground conversation with my contractor illustrating how things are playing out for business people and consumers while his crew installed six new windows in my house yesterday. Him--Maybe you'll like them so much you'll get the rest of the windows done. Me--I may need to hoard my cash with everything that's happening in the economy right now. Him--I know. It's crazy. The price of materials is up with Trump and the tariffs, pointing to new wood on the ground. (He used the words "tariffs" several times.) I didn't raise my prices this year because I want the work. Customers aren't getting all their windows replaced anymore, maybe just five or six at a time. Me--They're so expensive. I was glad to find Ian at Evanston Lumber. Other quotes were 50% higher. Him--You avoid the contractor markup that way. It works for all of us. Me later--We bought this house in 2008 just before the economy tanked. We were fortunate everything worked out for us. Him--College is so expensive. My daughter is in her last year at (local college). My truck is 13 years old and needs replacing so maybe after this year when she finishes. (I signed the contract for the windows just after the first announcement of Trump tariffs, knowing I needed to get the order in then and I probably would not be making big purchases for a good long while.)