America Rebuilding Efforts: Repairing What Biden Broke, Will Be No Easy Task

Trump’s Massive Mandate

Donald Trump’s election victory is not only being called a landslide (312-226 electoral votes), it is also being lauded as the greatest political comeback in American history. Trump overcame an onslaught of negative media, the weaponization of the Justice Department, lawfare by various DAs and judges, and multiple assassination attempts. But despite the overwhelming mandate delivered by voters, Trump has more obstacles ahead including America rebuilding efforts, namely a distressed U.S. consumer, a dysfunctional American government, and a very dangerous world courtesy of the outgoing Biden/Harris administration.

The Battered American Consumer

Throughout the Biden presidency, consumer confidence slumped as Americans grappled with high inflation and soaring prices. In September of this year, the chief economist at The Conference Board reported that economic optimism had cratered, as consumer confidence readings recorded the biggest one-month decline since the restrictions of Covid-19 back in August of 2021.

“Consumer confidence dropped in September to near the bottom of the narrow range that has prevailed over the past two years. September’s decline was the largest since August 2021 and all five components of the Index deteriorated. Consumers’ assessments of current business conditions turned negative while views of the current labor market situation softened further. Consumers were also more pessimistic about future labor market conditions and less positive about future business conditions and future income.¹

In addition, according to Pew Research, Americans’ views on the economy remain largely negative as consumers express concern about food prices, housing prices, and jobs. Just a quarter rate economic conditions as excellent or good, and while ratings do reflect partisanship, there has been little change in overall sentiment over the past year.²

Stubborn and Persistent Inflation

America emerged from one of the deadliest pandemics in human history only to confront a punishing inflationary spike. As MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle aptly described it, “we came out of the darkest hole, the Covid pandemic, and then we experienced the biggest inflation spike that most of us have seen in our lifetime. That takes a toll on people.”³

Indeed, in the aftermath of Covid-19, inflation rose to its highest level since 1981 creating what Brookings calls “Covid Inflation Shock.”

“The pandemic made social distancing necessary, requiring large parts of the economy to be shut down. As a result, the fall in economic activity was deeper and more abrupt than during the Great Recession, raising the possibility that lasting damage—in the form of persistent output gaps—could result. Policy stimulus was therefore aggressive and—given the subsequent rise in inflation—there is now understandable debate whether this was excessive.”⁴

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research energy prices, food prices, and price spikes due to shortages were the dominant drivers of inflation in its early stages. While supply chain disruptions had an inflationary impact, particularly in 2021 and 2022. Tight labor markets and wage increases also became factors of both wage and price inflation.⁵

While the rate of inflation has eased, Americans continue to feel the sting of high prices more than a year after the official end the Covid-19 health emergency. According to Nerd Wallet, food prices have risen 28% in 5 years which they attribute to several factors:

• Higher production, labor and fuel costs have rippled through every aspect of the food system.
• Supply chain disruptions caused by global events, severe weather and disease have affected many essential crops and livestock.
• Food companies that sought to maintain — or increase — profitability while facing these volatile conditions.⁶

Unsustainable Federal Debt

America’s national debt is now approaching a staggering $36 trillion. The increasing cost of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security as well as rising interest payments are the main drivers of America’s debt load which the Peterson Foundation warns creates a dangerous mismatch between spending and revenue.

“While the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an unsustainable fiscal trajectory, the national debt was already growing because of a fundamental imbalance between spending and revenues that will continue to grow in the future. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that federal spending will climb from 23.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024 to 27.9 percent by 2054; that growth is largely due to spending on healthcare and retirement programs for elderly Americans along with rapidly growing interest costs. Revenues, on the other hand, are only projected to climb from 17.5 percent of GDP in 2024 to 18.8 percent in 2054.”⁷

President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 added an additional $2.1 trillion in debt over 10 years and critics claim it not only fueled an unsustainable debt burden but also stoked inflation.

“The March 2021 Democratic bill included $1,400 payments to about 85% of Americans, $360 billion for state and local governments, and $242 billion in expanded unemployment benefits, among other things. As lawmakers worked on the measure, some economists, including Larry Summers, a top official under President Barack Obama, warned that the bill would lead to inflation. Fiscal conservatives joined in the warning … In the months that followed, inflation has taken off in the U.S. In March, prices were 8.5% higher than 12 months earlier. Even filtering out the cost of food and energy, which can rise and fall quickly, inflation still ran at a yearly rate of 6.4%.”⁸

Biden’s staggering number of executive actions added another $2 trillion more to the debt held by the public, federal trust funds, and other government accounts. The spending was enacted without Congressional approval and has considerable fiscal impact for the national debt and the American taxpayer. The House Budget Committee’s Oversight Task Force broke down some of those actions and their associated costs as follows:

Biden Executive Actions that have Fueled Federal Debt in Perpetuity:

Ending Medicaid Work Requirements:

• When: January 2021
• Cost:  $3 billion
• Action: Implemented an executive order that empowered the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to revoke state Medicaid waivers that allowed states to implement work requirements.

Government Contractor Rule:

• When: November 2021
• Cost: $3 billion
• Action: Requires federal contractors to pay their employees $15 per hour beginning in 2022, indexed to inflation for every year thereafter, increasing the cost of federal contracts at the taxpayer’s expense.

New Public Charge Rule:

• When: September 2022
• Cost: $26 billion
• Action: Reversed President Trump’s common-sense public charge rule by explicitly excluding some welfare programs from public charge determinations.

Illegal Obamacare Expansion:

• When: October 2022
• Cost: $34 billion
• Action: Rewrites a provision in the Affordable Care Act to transition over 600,000 Americans already enrolled in employer coverage onto Obamacare. The Biden Administration’s rule ran afoul of the statutory text, clear Congressional intent, and the Obama Administration’s own interpretation of the law.

Student Loan Repayment Pause:

• When: November 2022 (last extension)
• Cost: $165 billion
• Action: Extended the COVID-19 pandemic student loan repayment pause an unwarranted six times, even after the President himself declared the “pandemic was over,” despite bipartisan concerns that the pause worsens inflation.

So-Called “SAVE Plan”:

• When: June 2023
• Cost: $260 billion
• Action: Turned the originally targeted income driven repayment (IDR) program into one massive iteration in which 91 percent of new student debt would be eligible to receive reduced payments and eventual transfer to taxpayers.

Medicaid Eligibility Rule:

• When: September 2023 and March 2024
• Cost: Over $200 billion
• Action: Weakens Medicaid eligibility standards by limiting the time between eligibility reevaluations and eliminating the requirement for in-person interviews for some populations, threatening to further increase improper and fraudulent payments in the Medicaid program.

New Student Loan Bailout Scheme:

• When: April 2024
• Cost: $150 billion
• Action: Proposed four new provisions to cancel student loan debt, one of which makes “about 750,000 households making over $312,000 in average household income” eligible for loan cancellation, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis.

New Multi-Pollutant Emission Standards for Light- and Medium Duty Vehicles:

• When: March 2024
• Cost: $224 billion
• Action: Set irrationally high standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, forcing automobile manufactures to transition 70 percent of their fleets to electric by 2030.

“Hardship” Student Loan Proposal:

• When: Upcoming
• Cost: $350 billion
• Action: Upcoming rule that would forgive student debt based on “financial hardship;” projected to cost anywhere from $100 billion to $600 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.⁹

A Geopolitical Tinderbox

The Biden administration is also leaving Donald Trump a far less safe world and a much more vulnerable America. From the administration’s gutting of defense spending, its disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, ongoing appeasement of Iran, snubbing of Netanyahu, pacification of Putin, conflicting policies on Taiwan, and permitting a Chinese spy balloon to cross America unchallenged and gather intelligence from American military sites — Biden’s tenure has left a world of disorder in its wake.

“It is a far more dangerous world than Mr. Biden inherited, and far less congenial for U.S. interests, human freedom, and democracy. The latter is tragically ironic since the President has made the global contest between democracy and authoritarians an abiding theme. Authoritarians have advanced on his watch in every part of the world—Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and even the Americas.”¹⁰

Global risk consultancy firm, Control Risks, identifies geopolitical “red lines” that pose a significant threat to global stability in 2025.

“Around flashpoints in the Middle East, Europe and East Asia, leaders are taking escalatory steps calibrated to stop just short of red lines, even as those lines are increasingly uncertain and shifting – a classic recipe for miscalculation. Geopolitical competition is also transmitting red lines globally. Regional conflicts are increasingly intertwined via geopolitical coalitions – crossing a red line in one arena risks triggering a reaction in another.”¹¹

In addition, a recent worldwide Pew Research survey gave Biden low marks on his handling of key international issues as only four out of ten approve of how he has dealt with China. Just 39% approve of his approach to the Russia-Ukraine War and just 31% across 34 countries approve of how he has handled the Israel-Hamas War.¹²

President-Elect Trump now has the tall task of trying to dramatically improve America’s standing on the world stage. He not only needs to project strength abroad, according to Charles A. Kupchan is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, he must “steer a fractured America through a fractured world.”¹³

Trump has vowed to rebuild the military, end the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and safeguard global trade. According to Kupchan, he must also matriculate in a new world order.

“Power is shifting from West to East and North to South, awakening geopolitical ferment as competition heats up over position, status, and influence. Yet a globalized and interdependent world cannot afford to slide toward increasing rivalry and fracture. Avoiding great-power war, averting a climate crisis, preventing nuclear proliferation, regulating AI and other new technologies, and advancing global health—these and other challenges will require sustained cooperation across ideological and geopolitical dividing lines.”

Trump understands the magnitude of the moment as well as the risk and dysfunction left behind by an administration that has somehow forged an alliance between China and Iran and pushed North Korea into the arms of Putin.

Reversing and repairing Joe Biden’s serious economic and geopolitical missteps will keep safe haven assets like gold very much in play in 2025.

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1. https://www.conference-board.org/topics/consumer-confidence/press/CCI-Sep-2024↩︎
2. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/economic-ratings-and-concerns↩︎
3. https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/economy-inflation-biden-trump-impact-election-rcna179352↩︎
4. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/covid-19-inflation-was-a-supply-shock/↩︎
5. https://www.nber.org/digest/20239/unpacking-causes-pandemic-era-inflation-us↩︎
6. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/price-of-food↩︎
7. https://www.pgpf.org/the-fiscal-and-economic-challenge/drivers↩︎
8. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/20/jane-timken/bidens-american-rescue-plan-fueled-inflation-so-di/↩︎
9. https://budget.house.gov/press-release/president-bidens-executive-actions-have-cost-taxpayers-over-2-trillion↩︎
10. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-freedom-has-faded-on-bidens-watch-russia-middle-east-war-0f627381↩︎
11. https://www.controlrisks.com/riskmap/top-risks/red-line-geopolitics↩︎
12. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/how-well-is-biden-handling-international-issues/↩︎
13. https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/trumps-tall-task-overcoming-domestic-division-project-strength-abroad↩︎