That's what the former president and presumptive 2024 GOP candidate told Stephen Moore, one of his former economic advisors, during a recent dinner engagement.
"I asked President Trump how long it would take him to revive the economy. He said, 'Give me six months, and we'll be back to where we were,'" Moore, a Distinguished Fellow in Economics with The Heritage Foundation, said on Washington Watch Monday.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage in November of 2020 was 3.1%, well less than half of today's average of 6.41%.
"Remember what Ronald Reagan said when he debated Jimmy Carter – 'Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' I tell you, I'm not, and two-thirds of Americans say they're not better off because of the high inflation and the recklessness of this president," Moore told show host Tony Perkins.
Have you tried to buy a house lately?
Moore continued, using the mortgage rates as a barometer.
"When Trump left office the interest rate was 3%. Now it's 6-1/2% for a mortgage. That's making it where more and more Americans cannot afford the American dream of owning a home. It used to be that under Trump you had to have about a $65,000 annual income to buy a medium-valued home. Now it's $105,000 because of the higher cost, and it's going to get worse if we keep borrowing and spending like this," Moore said.
Joe Biden's spending pushed the national debt past $34 trillion earlier this year. Economists say it's on pace to increase by $1 trillion every 100 days. But what exactly does that mean?
According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the Congressional Budget Office projects the U.S., at its current pace, will add $20 trillion to the national debt over the next nine years.
Interest costs for the national debt were $659 billion in 2023 and are projected to rise to $1.6 trillion by 2034.
In 2023, the U.S. spent more on debt interest than it spent on Medicaid and Social Security.
A nation swimming in that kind of debt will have less available cash to invest in priorities like education, research and development and infrastructure. Increased debt means fewer opportunities for Americans as business investment slows, and behind it, economic growth slows too.
There's also less available cash to respond to crises, PGP notes. If the country faces a major recession similar to what it faced in 2007-2009, it will be more difficult to recover. The current path puts the U.S. at greater risk for such a crisis.
"What kind of great nation passes its bills on to its kids and grandkids?" Moore asked. "I think it's immoral. The numbers are so large now it's hard for people to really comprehend them. We're talking about almost $300,000 of debt for every family, which is a gargantuan amount of money. I call this fiscal child abuse because it's your children and grandchildren and mine who are really going to pay the cost for this," he noted.
Yet, says the respected economist, the Biden administration charges fearlessly through such obvious warning signs.
"Where's all the money going? I'll give you one example. [Biden has] already approved roughly $150 billion for student loan bailouts. Congress never approved that through an authorization of funds, and the Supreme Court has said loud and clear in its cases that the president does not have the authority to do this – and yet he's gone ahead and done it," Moore pointed out.
Biden has not only defied the Supreme Court, he's bragged about it.
The method to Biden's madness
Moore said Biden's relentless spending is the result of what's called the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which endorses a tax-and-spend approach for governments to manage their economies. That theory downplays the significance of government deficits and the national debt.
Moore says MMT "is the dingbat idea of some second-rate left-wing economist who told Biden, 'Oh, we can just spend as much money and borrow as much money as we want, and it won't have negative consequences.' Well, look at what's already happened to interest rates. Interest rates keep climbing and climbing … look what happened to inflation. That inflation didn't happen by accident. It happened because of massive trillions of dollars of spending that Biden spent and borrowed."
Moore says America's current financial state needs Trump's six months to begin next January.
"In November of this year I hope people respond to this in a thundering disapproval to Congress and the guy in the White House because we have the most financially reckless president in American history. I didn't believe anybody could be more financially reckless than Barack Obama, but Biden has been worse. It's amazing because he said he was going to unify the country. He hasn't unified it," Moore said.
