Trump promised lower costs but delivered price hikes and inflation

The defining promise of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign was lower costs on “Day One.” He broke it.  The first six months of this administration have been marked by ever-higher prices. 

Republicans in Congress would be wise to remember that voters are never quicker to fire elected officials than when they break a core promise. It is this Congress who will be on the ballot next year, not Donald Trump.

The campaign trail promises sounded too good to be true, because they were.  Trump committed to “end” inflation, cut energy costs “in half,” make health care more affordable, and that Americans would see “drastic price reductions” and cheaper groceries.

For most swing voters, lower costs were the whole point of voting for those now in power. They were counting on policies that would improve their lives, not make them harder. As polls show, the anger runs deep for a president and Congress who are gutting the social safety net, dolling out special favors to their wealthy friends and personally profiting from high office.

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Working Americans are speaking out against the policies that are making life more expensive. And candidates running in 2025 and 2026 have a duty to listen.

We help lead the bipartisan Cost Coalition, which exists to show how Washington’s economic agenda is making the American Dream unaffordable. The most credible voices in this fight aren’t in Washington; they’re our neighbors who are paying more and getting less.  America’s working families, veterans, small businesses and people of faith, are rising up to tell the real story.

Take Trump’s signature Washington policy solution, the “big, beautiful bill,” which raises costs. Its inflationary tax breaks for the wealthy mean gutting the safety net and kicking 10 million Medicaid beneficiaries off of their health insurance. 

When Allison Harris’ daughter was diagnosed with cancer, steep medical bills would have bankrupted their family even with private insurance coverage. Michigan’s Medicaid program helped cover the costs. She told their local news station that when the “big, beautiful bill” was signed, she felt “fear and disgust. Because you never know until something like this cancer journey happens, exactly how much stuff costs.”

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Her daughter, Kendall Williams, added, “I feel like the fact that they even signed it into law just shows how some adults don’t have common sense.” 

Common sense is hard to find in Washington, especially when it comes to the economic whiplash from blanket tariffs that are fueling a new wave of inflation. 

The price of ground beef is at a record high and more Americans are using Buy Now, Pay Later to afford groceries. Large retailers like Wal-Mart and Amazon have already raised prices. And now Proctor and Gamble says tariffs will increase prices on common household products from Tide detergent to Luv’s diapers.

“It’s hard enough to buy the things my family needs. Raising that cost is going to make it harder,” Ohian Charlene Monoskie said to her local news. 

It’s not just families. Hard choices are facing small business owners – eat the tariffs or raise prices on their customers.  

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After decades teaching in Pennsylvania schools, Jamie Pikulsky opened the From Scratch Uniontown cafe, where she tries to keep her prices affordable to compete with larger chains. But tariffs mean she’s paying $600 more a month for the coffee she serves her customers. She says: “I don’t know of any small business right now that is thriving. It’s tough across the board.”

Instead of ending inflation “immediately,” like Trump promised the country at the Republican National Convention last summer, his policies have made inflation worse. And more pain could be on the way with the latest round of tariffs, after failed negotiations didn’t yield 90 deals in 90 days.

Both parties should fight against the Washington agenda that is raising costs.

More elected Republicans need to think for themselves. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., had the guts to choose the people of North Carolina over the “big, beautiful bill.” Tillis spoke out on the Senate floor, asking his colleagues, “What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding is not there?” Tillis knew that kicking people out of their health insurance shifts costs onto all of us.

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And Democrats must show they are listening to working people by focusing relentlessly on lowering costs and growing the economy.

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who is running to succeed Tillis, is showing the way by calling out “politicians in D.C. [who] are running up our debt, ripping away our healthcare, disrespecting our veterans, cutting help for the poor, and even putting Medicare and Social Security at risk, just to give tax breaks to billionaires.” 

So is Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who says: “The cost of living in the economy is the driving issue for the average person.  It’s just not always driving the conversation among political elites.”

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That’s the disconnect.  

Whatever the billionaire in the White House may think, the American people are not stupid. They know they are paying more and getting less. They are saying it today and they will say it again next year, when they will again cast ballots for who leads the next Congress. 

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