One sentiment is the greatest threat to the Democrats’ election hopes

"I want my life back." It’s a broadly held sentiment that poses the greatest threat to the Democrats’ election hopes this November. Here’s why. 

For working- and middle-class Americans, it means returning to a time when you could go to the grocery store or fill your gas tank without being shocked by the costs. A lost and better time when getting a burger and fries was not a luxury purchase, your savings were sufficient to meet an unexpected expense, buying a house was not an impossible dream, and getting that new car was something your budget could handle. 

Those bygone days harken to a time before Democrats saw the pandemic as an opportunity to transform our economy. Recall the February 2021 The New York Times article titled "The Biden Team Wants to Transform the Economy. Really." Democrats don’t talk about that much anymore, and with good reason. 

Former President Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Georgia State University Convocation Center on Aug. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Their post-pandemic spending spree caused "inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation" – as their economist emeritus, Larry Summers, warned it would. As he predicted, inflation surged, dealing a devastating blow to American family budgets and aspirations. 

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So, no one should be surprised that voters are now yearning for a president who spends less time rebuilding "our economy from the middle out and the bottom up" – whatever that means – and more time actually increasing their incomes with no or low inflation? 

Perhaps the greatest irony of the Biden-Harris effort to grow the economy "from the middle out and the bottom up" has been its "trickle up" effects. The wealthiest Americans have been benefiting from elevated levels of investment income.

Working- and middle-class Americans, on the other hand, have seen their wages depleted by inflation, personal savings well below pre-pandemic levels, and credit card debt at record highs. In fact, rapidly growing credit card and car loan delinquencies are signaling "increased financial stress, especially among younger and lower-income households," according to the New York Fed. 

As the impact of inflation has now hit the jobs market, a global stock market sell-off is threatening the value of retirement savings in 401(k) plans, potentially wiping out billions of dollars in value. 

Consider our economy officially transformed.

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Unfortunately for Democrats, most Americans still recall 2019, a year in which, under President Trump, median household income soared to historic highs. The poverty rate plummeted to a 60-year low, hitting "an all-time record low for every race and ethnic group." Income inequality also declined – yes, it declined. 

Job openings exceeded the number of people unemployed in every month. As a result, unemployment rates for Blacks, Hispanic and Asians all hit record lows while labor force participation increased. 

It was a very good year. 

Because this all occurred without Biden-Harris levels of transformative government spending, inflation remained under control, averaging 1.8% for the year. Wage growth, on the other hand, ended the year up 3.1%. Wages grew faster than prices and interest rates were low enough to make large purchases – such as cars and homes – economically feasible. 

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Seriously, who doesn’t miss 2019’s economic security and prosperity (let alone world peace, safe cities and secure borders)? For working- and middle-class Americans, it was the best of times. 

Then, the pandemic hit. 

Biden and Harris claim they inherited a post-pandemic economic disaster and had to spend like drunken sailors (an insult to drunken sailors, who at least spend their own money) to prevent a recession. It’s a lie. 

Many governors shut down their states’ economies during the pandemic. That created a bipartisan economic crisis that Trump addressed well before the Biden-Harris administration took office. 

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In the 10 months before January 2021, over 16.5 million workers (that’s about 1.7 million per month) returned to work as states. with Trump's encouragement, reopened their economies. Economic growth accelerated at a V-shaped recovery pace with GDP hitting a stunning 33.4% in the third quarter of 2020 and a still impressive 4% in the fourth quarter. And, by the way, the inflation rate Biden/Harris inherited from Trump in January 2021 was 1.4%.

The economy was on pace for a full V-shaped recovery. Absent the glaring economic incompetence of the Biden-Harris post-pandemic spending spree, it would have quickly and fully recovered.

Should Harris prevail in November, we will get more – or worse – economic incompetence. Keep in mind that Harris cast the tie-breaking vote behind passage of both the ironically misnamed American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those multitrillion-dollar spending boondoggles drove the surge in inflation that forced the Fed to increase interest rates – and she owns them. 

Harris’ San Francisco-style economic policies would include higher taxes, more regulation and more, much more, spending. From Trump, we would get growth-driving (and revenue-enhancing) tax cuts, reduced regulation, support for U.S. energy production and a pullback on the current absurd level of government spending (while preserving Medicare and Social Security). In other words, a return to the economic sanity that so clearly benefited working- and middle-class Americans. 

Bottom line, "I want my life back" means a future with the prosperity, peace and economic competence our nation once enjoyed under President Trump rather than the continuing chaos and insecurity of the Biden-Harris years. It’s a sentiment that could decide this election.

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Andy Puzder was chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants for more than 16 years, following a career as an attorney. He is currently a senior fellow at both the America First Policy Institute and the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. His next book, "A Tyranny for the Good of its Victims – The Ugly Truth About Stakeholder Capitalism" will come out  early next year.