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They're very much experiencing a reality. And there have been there's still been a significant increase in cost.
I mean, yes. I mean, the inflation that. So they're coming off of this inflation hangover.
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Yes.
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But it's still they're still feeling affordability is an issue and affordability.
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But their incomes are growing faster than inflation. And that's a good sign.
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They're they're feeling kind of like this is unrelenting for them.
Just look at this. The polling rate. Three in 10 Americans from a CNN poll earlier this month rate only three in 10 rating the economy positively. Fifty five percent.
So a majority say Trump's policies have made the economy worse.
64 percent say he hasn't gone far enough to make everyday goods more affordable.
We just had a report about how natural gas is now spiking in the middle of this awful cold snap that we're having.
Is the president really focused?
I mean, we see him in Iowa, but he's been so focused. Venezuela, Greenland. Yeah. What are kind of, you know, an unpopular immigration tactics that his folks are taking in Minneapolis?
If you were advising the president, would you advise him to kind of get caught trying a little more on the affordability issue?
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Yeah.
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And that's why he's going to be speaking in, what, 45 minutes in Iowa, because the affordability issue is central to the to the country's well-being.
But also, if Republicans want to win in that midterm, they've got to overcome this perception that that, you know, things are going in the wrong direction.
As an economist I can tell you, hey, look, folks, if you look at these things objectively, most of these statistics are in there.
I mean, for example, you just mentioned quite right. Well, you just mentioned natural gas prices going up.
They've doubled. That's right. It's a, you know, a huge increase. And yet gas prices are at very low levels.
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I'm loving filling my gas tank, but like ground beef, like you said, you know.
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Yeah, but pork chops. How about that one? Pork chops are going down in price. I'm going to maybe stick with the beans.
How about the fact that airline tickets are going down? How about the fact that, you know, motels and hotels are going?
I mean, a lot of things are falling in price. A lot of things are rising in price. But on average, the CPI says we're still too high, but coming down. OK.
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A lot of people aren't getting hotel rooms. A lot of people aren't flying. Right. A lot of people buying the ground beef.
That's just the point I'm making here. OK. So we're seeing this sort of issue that the president is trying to confront.
But he's been dealing with this for a while, and he's kind of been denying its existence.
So I do wonder if there are any levers that he can kind of pull.
Is there anything he can kind of pull out of his hat today and say to Americans, OK, we're going to make a difference right now?
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Well, one thing he can mention is that the tax cut, the big, beautiful tax bill, a lot of people, Americans, don't understand that the dividend from that, that you're going to get a bigger paycheck this month because you're going to have less money withheld from your check.
And for the average person, that can be $1,000 or $2,000 this year.
So that's going to be a positive thing for the economy.
He's suspended some of these tariffs, which is, as you know, I'm not a big tariff guy.
But if the tariffs come down, hopefully that will bring prices down as well.
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