LARRY KUDLOW: Biden keeps spreading lies about Trump’s record

Want to hear a great stat? A Gallup poll just asked voters about electric vehicles. This is maybe the biggest centerpiece of Joe Biden’s policies. He talks about it all the time. His green bureaucracy spends their days telling Americans how they’re supposed to live, what they can and cannot buy. 

You know the litany: dishwashers, microwaves, gas furnaces, gas stoves, shower heads, gas-powered cars… Oh my gosh, the list is practically endless, all in the name of climate change. Our friend Bjorn Lomborg estimates that global government spending on climate change each year is targeting $27 trillion — annually — and it hasn’t moved the needle one bit, but back to Gallup’s EVs. 

In just one year, the percentage of people who might consider buying an EV has dropped from 43% to 35%.

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The percentage of people who are seriously considering buying an EV has dropped from 12% to 9%, and those saying they’d never buy an EV has gone up from 41% to 48%. These are staggering numbers, and car salesman Joe Biden is out there selling these lemons. 

Know what? Biden’s EVs are the modern-day Edsel of our time. Remember Edsel? Ford brought the car out in 1957 and it promptly became one of the biggest failures in automotive history, and three years later, they had to bury it. 

So, I’m going to bet at some point in the presidential campaign, Mr. Biden stops talking about EVs. Give that a “maybe.” 

Obama adviser David Axelrod has told Biden to drop Bidenomics completely, and instead adopt more of a Clintonite message of, “I feel your pain, and we’re working hard to do better,” but that’s not what Biden is doing. 

Instead, he’s blaming Donald Trump for everything that’s going wrong. Inflation in particular, which is not only stubborn, but is actually moving significantly higher, like an inflation “thief” stealing middle-class wages in the middle of the night. Hat-tip to the Wall Street Journal, and there aren’t going to be any Fed rate cuts to juice Biden’s sagging election-year economy. 

In fact, real worker wages are again going down. Over the course of his presidency, real hourly wages have dropped 2.5%. Real weekly wages have dropped 4.5%, but Biden keeps blaming Trump, who was inaugurated nearly seven years ago and first declared his presidency almost nine years ago. Enough already! 

This is the dumbest blame-game in history. OK, fine, let’s look at the scoreboard for a moment: Under Biden, the level of the CPI has gone up over 19% in 38 months. His average inflation rate per year is 6.1%. It’s the highest in 40 years. Under Trump, for his entire four-year term, the CPI went up 7%, or 1.9% yearly. 

Blame Trump? For what, exactly? So, you think Joe Biden would try to convince working-class folks that he’s going to bring down inflation by, for example, cutting government spending? Now, there’s a thought! He won’t say that, because (a) he doesn’t believe it, and (b) he’s not doing it. 

We’re halfway through the FY ’24 budget year, and the deficit is now running at over $1 trillion. Halfway through the year! On track for $2 trillion for the entire year, which is basically what the CBO baseline shows: roughly $2 trillion deficits, as far as the eye can see. That is most certainly not going to reduce inflation and increase the take-home pay of working folks or solve their affordability crisis.

Coming back to Joe Biden’s centerpiece Green New Deal policy… the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act is probably going to cost around a trillion dollars in the years ahead. For what? For cars that people don’t want? 

For federal slush funds for politically favored investors and producers who love the greatest corporate welfare in history but whose companies are going to go bankrupt in due course? Have you seen a lot of electric chargers in your suburban neighborhoods? If your EV battery runs out, can you seriously call a tow truck with a handy electric charger connection in his vehicle? 

Doubtful. Have you taken a look at auto insurance rates, which have blown sky-high — 20% annually — in the last quarter, because EVs are more dangerous and harder to repair? Biden keeps blaming Trump for everything. He keeps spreading untruths about Trump’s record and his own — Biden’s — spending and deficits and debt creation. 

That’s not a platform. That’s not a future vision. Every time Biden lies, he diminishes confidence in his ability to lead in government. 

One big reason his economic polls are in the high 20s or low 30s is that people have no confidence that his policies will provide future growth and opportunity. Actually, they don’t even know what his policies are — except blaming Trump, and that’s a political loser if I’ve ever seen one. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the April 11, 2024, edition of “Kudlow.”