Answer To Reagan's 1980 Question Haunts GOP Today In Midterms

"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" - part of Ronald Reagan's closing remarks during the Presidential Debate in Cleveland  on October 28, 1980 directed to a national television & radio audience, specifically contrasting his platform with the record of incumbent President Jimmy Carter who was his opponent on the stage.

To see why two thirds of the people in the country today are answering President Reagan's question - "NO" - regarding the last two years, thereby possibly endangering continuous Republican control of the House & Senate after the midterms, look no further than the fact that real inflation-adjusted average hourly wages of all private employees were down 0.7% over the past 12 months including the last six months in a row where the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased faster than wages meaning far too many people are working more & more for a dollar that is buying less & less.  The data also reveals that @ no time during the last two years have wages kept pace with the rate needed to improve the average American's standard of living.  See graphics below.

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Not keeping up with inflation pretty much describes the affordability crisis in a nutshell.  Specifically it is the high prices of gasoline, groceries, housing, & healthcare that constantly nag @ people, annoying & distressing them wherever they go.  

And it's not just the last two years that have put people in such a sour mood.  There has not been one month since February, 2021 where nominal year over year average hourly earnings increased faster than inflation @ a rate sufficient, when repeated month after month, for people to realize a noticeable improvement in their standard of living over their lifetimes - defined as an annual pay increase equal to the rate of inflation plus 1.75%.  Since this empirical formula has to be realized every year over a 40 year working career in order to double a starting salary in real inflation adjusted terms, it will be a monumental task to make up for the terrible performance of the last 67 months.  People may not know the formula but they do sense their standard of living has been debased.  See graphic below.

 

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All of this misery was caused by the out-of-control deficit spending of Trump in his first term & Biden.  The graphic below shows that Trump authorized $3.6 trillion of Covid-19 stimulus spending & Biden $1.9 trillion.  Since Trump was out of office when inflation picked up he blamed Biden who in turn blamed Putin's war with Ukraine for the price misery.  The graphic below shows that inflation was picking up before Biden added one dollar in stimulus spending & that Putin's war did not start until a year later meaning the root cause of the highest inflation in forty years was caused by Trump & Biden - the two biggest deficit spenders in the country's history, & this spending continues today.

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Overall $35 trillion of the country's $40 trillion national debt has accumulated in the 21st century with $20 trillion, or half of the national debt, coming from Trump & Biden in the last ten years.  See the graphic below that shows the growth of the national debt from 1789 to the end of Biden's term. Another $4 trillion under Trump has been added in less than 2 years & is not shown.  Bush doubled the cumulative national debt since the nation's founding, then BO doubled that amount, & Trump & Biden completed the compounding to date by doubling that amount again in the last ten years.

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Since Trump took office in 2025 the price of gasoline has gone from $2.47 a gallon & has been as high as $4.56 per gallon recently while diesel has gone from an average retail price for on-highway ultra-low sulfur diesel @ $3.715 per gallon to as high as $6.53 per gallon.

Grocery prices increased 28.1% (CPI Grocery Index) from February, 2020, just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, until the end of Biden's presidency - a very large increase in a very short period of time making the price rise painfully noticeable.  Since then, under Trump, grocery prices have increased @ a 2.7% annual rate meaning that Trump certainly has not cut grocery (& consumer) prices as he repeatedly promised in the 2024 campaign.  Trump said that a vote for him meant "your groceries will be cheaper" & promised to bring down the cost of food, gas, & everyday household items frequently claiming he would end inflation & make living in America affordable again starting on day one of his administration.  These types of claims are making it hard for Republican candidates to explain why none of this came true.  Republicans could explain that in September the grocery index cooled to +1.8% YoY, due to decreases in dairy products that mathematically brought the index down for instance.  But 1.8% is still an increase on top of all the other price increases & if your personal diet relies heavily on steak, fish, seafood, & coffee, your personal inflation rate at checkout will still feel much higher. 

Since February the 30 year mortgage interest rate has gone from slightly below 6% to as high as 7.5% recently thereby adding $4,000 per year in payments on a median priced house of $403,300 with a 20% down payment.  Most down payments are less than 20% - first time home buyers typically put down 10% which adds another $500 per year in borrowing costs.  Obviously workers' pay has not kept pace with housing-mortgage interest rate costs.

Healthcare costs have increased tremendously over the years.  The average employer-sponsored healthcare insurance family plan annually averages around $20,000 per employee.  Over the past two years healthcare costs increased 7% to 8%+ again outpacing worker compensation.

The above situations & statistics do not bode well for the party in power - the GOP.

But there are additional issues that do not have numerical or measurable results that are troubling for GOP House & Senate candidates.  And most of  the voters' anti-incumbent animosity toward the party in power was caused unnecessarily by Trump & Republican incumbents' fealty to him..

For starters most GOP congressional candidates have trouble pointing to any legislative accomplishments the last two years, usually settling on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) ceremoniously signed into law on July 4, 2025 as their jewel that stopped a huge income tax increase on millions of Americans that would have occurred automatically after December 31, 2025.  The trouble with this braggadocious claim is that the huge tax increase that would have gone into effect after New Year's Eve 2025 was set in stone when Trump's Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 needed the Senate's budget reconciliation rules to pass, due to the small Republican Senate majority.  Specifically, the "Byrd Rule," requires that any legislation passed by reconciliation cannot increase the federal deficit beyond a 10-year window so Trump & the slim Republican Senate majority of 2017 sunsetted the TCJA after eight years @ the end of 2025 because extending it any further would have increased the deficit in violation of the Byrd Rule.

It is hard to get a lot of credit for preventing some terrible thing from happening that you put in place to happen that most people were unaware of to boot.  Just imagine if the OBBBA had not passed in 2025 & everyone would have gotten a large income tax increase starting New Year's Day 2026.  Do you think anyone other than Republicans would have gotten the blame?  Would Republicans want to explain the gimmickry used in passing the TCJA of 2017?

To make matters worse regarding the OBBBA, Trump put in no tax on tips, OT, & Social Security - all misnomers because each has limits that when exceeded result in tips, OT, & seniors paying income tax on these items.  But those who did receive some benefit found that the tariffs Trump willy- nilly implemented ate away that tax benefit.

The tariffs also are making life difficult for northern border Republican Senate candidates like Susan Collins in Maine & Mike Rogers in Michigan who see Americans paying more because of the tariffs or not getting the products they want @ all like Canadian Club whiskey.  Rogers broke with Trump on the trade war saying "Here in Michigan we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now."

Trump's long list of broken campaign promises is also making GOP candidates feel uneasy & is keeping them on defense in their races:

• Trump promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office, or even before taking office -  “It will take me no longer than one day.  I know exactly what to say to each of them (Putin & Zelensky).”  Instead of ending the war Trump is now funding it by purchasing 300,000 tons of Russian diesel fuel - a deal made in desperation to lower diesel prices in America & for a very short time @ that.  In addition Trump has waived implementing sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil after signing a bill championed by the late SC Senator Lindsey Graham, thereby providing Putin with more income for the Ukraine war.  Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers once again broke with Trump saying "I'm just a little skeptical that this will work in the way that the administration wants it to work.  I don't think we can give Putin an inch" & I add because he will take a country mile.  The Iowa GOP Senate candidate, Ashley Hinson, said "We need to lower diesel prices, but I don't think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it."
  
  
• Trump promised “all hell to pay in the Middle East” & stated that those responsible for abducting Americans in Israel on October 7, 2023 would be "hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long & storied History of the United States of America" if the hostages were not freed by Hamas before his second inauguration on January 20, 2025.   All 20 surviving American hostages were released by Hamas to Israel on October 13, 2025  as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire and peace agreement & the remains of the final deceased American hostage  were recovered & returned to Israel on January 26, 2026 - over 1 year later than Trump's deadline.
  
  
• During the presidential campaign Trump rarely brought up Jeffrey Epstein unprompted.  But when asked, both Trump & Vance said they would release the DOJ files.  A month after Trump took office there was an obvious dragging of feet on what came to be known as the release of the Epstein files & some awkward moments like when Attorney General Pam Bondi said on February 21, 2025 "It's sitting on my desk right now to review."  Four months later Bondi was still clarifying what she was going to release.  After many twists & turns Trump signed into law the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 19, 2025 (Trump signed because the EFTA had passed the House 427 to 1 & passed the Senate via unanimous consent) that ordered the release of the entire Jeffrey Epstein-related files to the public within 30 days, i.e., December 19, 2025.  What has been released is so heavily redacted that it is useless.  Today there still are millions of pages that have not been released.

• And of course during the campaign Trump repeatedly vowed to lower the cost of living "on Day One" & bring down "the price of everything" that would end inflation & "make America affordable again." Trump pledged to slash energy & electricity prices by half (50%) within 12 to 18 months of taking office & stated he would push gasoline prices below $2 a gallon.  He frequently stood in front of items like bacon, milk, eggs, & flour, promising to immediately lower supermarket & grocery bills.   He claimed he would drive down mortgage rates so people could afford "2% again" & make home financing & refinancing much cheaper.  The saddest part of these promises of over two years ago is that today Trump stands in front of reporters' cameras & says inflation is "defeated" or "we don't have inflation" with such false conviction that he looks like he actually believes it himself.  This is delusional.  If Trump has vanquished inflation why did Social Security just announce a 3.6% cost of living increase?

Now none of the above gives anyone a reason to vote for a Republican & the Democrats only offer "We're not Trump" but you don't have to drill down very far to find that even the ones who can appear reasonable during a six minute interview all boil down to the same big government spenders who think taxing billionaires is the answer to every ill they can throw money at.  And they have grown so bold that they now openly call themselves socialists.  

And on the socialist score Trump is again no help to GOP congressional campaigners.  Trump has repeatedly stated that "America will never be a communist country" & will "never be a socialist country" framing his remarks around opposition to progressive policies & Democrat candidates like @ Mount Rushmore on the 4th of July during  America's 250th-anniversary celebrations & in last month's government-funded PSAs.  

Midterm GOP candidates took this lead & ran with it until Trump pulled the rug out from under them during the week of September 21.  First, on Monday of that week Trump went to Gracie Mansion, the home of NYC socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, & said " I want him to be a great mayor, & he’s certainly got potential, got great potential."   

Then on Thursday of that week Trump rolled out the red carpet with a state visit for the authoritarian General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Xi Jinping.   See photo below of Chinese flags flying over the Oval Office.

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Xi returned Trump's adoration by showing up @ the state dinner in his Mao suit.  See photo below.

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After Xi left Washington Trump completed the week's trifecta by inviting Russian President Putin to the G20 meeting in Miami, Florida in December.  

Just what were House & Senate candidates campaigning against socialism & communism to make of Trump's adoration of socialist & communist politicians?

And all the while Trump talks about the U.S. never becoming a socialist country he is actively pursuing making it just that.  The U.S. government, under Trump, has acquired or proposed direct ownership stakes, equity, or control (such as "golden shares" or veto rights) in approximately 30 companies through CHIPS Act grants, defense funding, & industrial policy interventions.  Key companies where the federal government has taken or agreed to take ownership or control include:

• Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC): ~10% stake (valued at about $8.9 billion) converted from CHIPS Act funds, making the government its largest single shareholder. 
• MP Materials (NYSE: MP): ~15% stake acquired via Department of Defense funding for rare earth minerals. 
• U.S. Steel Corporation: A "golden share" granting the federal government veto rights over major corporate decisions as a condition of approving Nippon Steel’s acquisition. 
• Lithium Americas Corp. (NYSE: LAC): A 10% equity stake tied to lithium mining projects. 
• Trilogy Metals Inc. (NYSE: TMQ): A 10% stake (plus warrants) connected to the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects & Ambler Road permits in Alaska. 
• Westinghouse: An 8% stake in the nuclear power company. 
• GlobalFoundries: A proposed Commerce Department equity stake attached to a quantum foundry award. 
• USA Rare Earth: A 10% stake in a mine-to-magnet supply chain deal.
• Vulcan Elements & PsiQuantum: Recipient companies tied to federal loans & Commerce Department awards requiring minority government equity stakes. 

In several blatant vote-buying fiscally irresponsible moves proving that he learned nothing about the Covid-19 stimulus checks that fueled the worst inflation in 40 years or just does not care about it, or both, Trump has sent $90 to every eligible Medicare recipient (about $2 billion) to "offset some of the cost of your October Medicare premium," $500 checks to nearly 1 million people to compensate for what he called "excessive ObamaCare fees," $8 billion to farmers to make up for their costs for tariffs & the high cost of diesel, gasoline, & fertilizer, &  promised $5,000 to every adult in America if the Republicans win the House & Senate in the midterms.  The latter giveaway is estimated to cost over $1 trillion, an amount similar to the Covid-19 stimulus payments that kicked off the inflation that is the root cause of the affordability crisis that has plagued the nation the last six years.

The above mentioned $5,000 checks are reminiscent of the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) Dividends of $5,000 checks per American citizen household that Trump promised from the expected $1 trillion to $2 trillion savings resulting from slashing federal spending, waste, fraud, & abuse & rewarding taxpayers using a percentage of the savings generated by the initiative  - but actual results fell far short of their initial targets & DOGE ceased operations & shut down on July 4, 2026.

And the biggest issue for many disheartened MAGA republicans is the breaking of the promise to keep America out of endless wars.  Trump frequently campaigned & spoke against "endless wars" or "forever wars," stating that the job of the U.S. military is to defend the nation rather than rebuild foreign countries or solve ancient conflicts.  During a Jan. 6, 2024, rally before the Iowa caucuses, Trump told supporters that returning him to the White House would allow the country to “turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars. They never ended.”  And Trump repeatedly stated he would stop wars, claiming he could do so "with a telephone call" and that he was the only modern president to have no new wars during his first term.  Well that claim is no more - & it's not just Iran but also terrorist groups that Iran supports like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi militants in Yemen, & militias in Iraq.  These enemies are fascist Islamic terrorists who strictly follow Sharia law, making our fight against them the most endless of endless wars, especially after killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, 2026.  To date Moody's Analytics estimates that the Iran war has cost the average American household more than $2,000.  To see what a headache the Iran war is for Republican candidates try to name one who is running on the issue of fighting the war with Iran.

We have Trump's personal interest issues of the White House ballroom, the arch near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, the retention pond liner, his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, & upgrading a public golf course near the national mall as well as major corruption and self-dealing claims against the second Trump administration focused on personal enrichment, crypto ventures, foreign gifts, pay-to-play pardons, & conflicts of interest - each of which will be the subject of future investigations @ one time or another.

The most important point to takeaway from this post is that there is not one incumbent (two possible exceptions mentioned below) of any party running for reelection that has been working on solving the problems highlighted hereinabove.  They are all focused on their own reelection.  Speaker of the House Mike Johmson recessed the House from July (23 - 27) to August 30 so incumbents could head home for their summer break to campaign for reelection.  Johnson then adjourned the House on September 17 sending lawmakers on a seven-week recess ahead of the midterm elections not returning until November 9.  The Senate's summer break ran from August 8 until September 14 followed by a recess from September 30 until November 9.  When either chamber of Congress was in session did any elected representative ever propose solutions to the Social Security & Medicare insolvencies that are bigger problems than the high price of gas & are projected to happen in the 4th quarter of 2032 - i.e., before the terms end of the people elected to the Senate next week.  And the answer is "of course not."

As you can see from the dates it is all about them - not the country or you.

The elephant or donkey in the room is that the two party system makes fools out of us as we go from one to the other, but always sliding toward the Death of Democracy of the American republic.  The truth is that there are only two incumbents that I have found worth considering voting for based on their voting records - Brian Fitzpatrick (PA district #1 - covers all of Bucks County & a small part of Montgomery County just north of Philadelphia) & Warren Davidson (OH district #8 - spans west-central & southwestern Ohio. Major cities & communities in his district include Hamilton, Fairfield, Middletown, Eaton, Greenville, Troy, & parts of the northern & western suburbs of Cincinnati).  Do your own homework if you live in either of their districts.

One of the themes of several posts this year has been to return to excellence by not casting a wasted vote defined as voting for someone you don't believe in.  We should be trying to find people whose principles we do believe in.  Under this standard it should be hard for anyone to vote for an incumbent Republican or Democrat for reelection based on the report on the issues in this post.  You're just going to get more of the same voting for incumbents other than Fitzpatrick or Davidson.

Not just RTE but much of the country has been thinking this way.  There are 100 congressional districts with 173 candidates who do not self identify as Republican or Democrat.   You can find the list of the candidates by state by clicking here.  One candidate I came across worthy of consideration is Sarah Zabel running in Idaho's first district.  Check your ballot for your own non incumbent Democrat & Republican candidates & then do your homework - if it is ever going to make a difference not voting for candidates of the two major parties it is this election.

In addition to the 100 congressional districts mentioned above there are 520,000+ elected positions in the U.S., but under the current system, 70+% are uncontested.  If you ask "How’s that working out for us?" November 3 is the next chance you will have to do something about it via write-ins.  People in the circles I travel in let me know that Saritha Komatireddy running for NY state Attorney General against incumbent Letitia James is someone to keep an eye on.  Click here to watch a recent debate - I set the URL to begin with Saritha's opening statement which is very impressive & set the dynamic tone that Tish James could not keep up with.

The Libertarian Party is fielding hundreds of candidates in many states.  Click here to see the entire list (also click on "Where We stand" @ the top of this webpage to see if you are more libertarian than you think by reading "Our Platform" & "The Issues") & once on the webpage search by state to see if you have any Libertarian candidates.  Lana Leguia is running as a Libertarian in NJ-07 but will not appear on the ballot due to a court conflict with required signatures.  You can write Lana's name in (In 2010 Incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was re-elected as a write-in candidate despite having been defeated in the Republican primary so it can be done).  See if you agree that Lana is head & shoulders better than the Republican or Democrat candidates.

And Michele Tafoya, running for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota, deserves a long look against Tim Walz's Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan, who participated in one of the most incompetent administrations in memory.  Although not a member of the DSA, Flanagan has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, leader of the Socialist movement in America who has run for elected office as an Independent since 1981, pointing out that people other than Democrats & Republicans do win elections.  Flanagan's progressive program overlaps with many DSA points like universal single payer healthcare euphemized as Medicare For All, universal childcare, paid family leave, increased public education funding, & ending arms sales to Israel.  Michele has distanced herself from the toxic MAGA label in Minnesota that her opponent has tried to put on her falsely, & downplayed Trump's endorsement framing her campaign as independent & focused on Minnesota.  If you live in Minnesota Michele could be a refreshing change.

In any event unseating the two party system will not be easy but if people can't see the need for it now then God bless us.

Let me close with a "don't" & a "do."

Don't vote for any candidate who wants to, by a simple slim majority, end the Senate filibuster, pack the Supreme Court with four more justices, end the Electoral College, & add DC & Puerto Rico as states.   This type of activist is lazy & unwilling to do the hard work of advocating for political change in a constitutional due process way to convince his countrymen of his perceived benefit of such radical changes.  This type of move, if it can be pulled off, will inflict the tyranny of a small temporary majority on almost half the country thereby continuing or even amplifying the polarization of our fragile republic.  Such a decision should require the buy-in from all the citizens.

And do vote for any candidate who proposes, as a first step to solving the affordability problem, the stabilization of the value of the currency relative to the price of gold because we won't bring prices & wages in line to raise our living standards until we do.

The Increasing Education Gap Exacerbates U.S. Affordability Problem

"If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was & never will be." - Thomas Jefferson in an 1816 letter to Charles Yancey 

"I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction.  The world will have a generation of idiots." - Albert Einstein

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The Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area is the latest school district in the country to suffer the ignominy of having many schools within its district that did not have a single student who could do grade-level mathematics.  In the Twin Cities case there were eleven such schools in the 24-25 academic year with five of the eleven being on the list @ least two years in a row.  The Twin Cities join Baltimore, Chicago, & NYC with this infamous distinction of having a large number of such schools.  Alabama had 28 elementary schools where not a single student achieved math proficiency.

Now these schools are the worst of the worst - but there are many others across the country that are harmful.  For instance overall math proficiency across the St. Louis City district averages around 13% to 16%.  You will find similar results in math & reading for any large city.  Let me know if you know of an exception. 

Reading & math skills for fourth & eighth graders are important because after the fourth grade students must be proficient in reading to learn other subjects & math proficiency in eighth grade is one of the most significant predictors of success in high school.  I often wonder how someone got to the eighth grade reading @ a fourth grade level.

In 2022, the percentage of 8th grade public school students performing at or above the National Assessment of Educational Progress Proficient (NAEP) level in reading was 29 percent nationally, with 10 states (including DC) having a lower percentage of proficient 8th grade readers than the national level: AK & KS - both @ 26%; DE @ 24%; TX @ 23%; MS, AL, WV, & DC - all @ 22%; OK @ 21%; & NM @ 18%. 

If our youth is unable to read, how are they going to function in the world after leaving high school?  And the answer is poorly.  Over fifty percent of adults read @ an elementary school level.  These adults were the students decades ago who couldn't read proficiently @ the 4th & 8th grade levels.

And this math & reading problem carries over into civics as well.  I think Jefferson was just as concerned with the citizenry not understanding how their government works as he was with them not being able to add two & two & get anywhere near four.

I have posted videos of people like Jay Leno & Mark Dice interviewing college students who laughingly made blooming idiots out of themselves answering "Man on the Street" interview questions like who is our vice president.  Twenty years ago I made suggestions to some schools to offer no credit remedial civics courses - just so the school would not be so embarrassed by their student interviewees' responses.

Although there are no colleges that offer a remedial course in civics, there are some that offer traditional remedial courses (developmental classes for students lacking basic prerequisite skills) that are generally limited to reading, writing, & mathematics at the college level.  But this again begs the question how did the student get this far if they are so lacking in basic preparedness.

UC, San Diego is an excellent example, offering a no credit freshman remedial math course targeting middle & elementary school levels - e.g., adding fractions & rounding numbers.  The kicker is that 94% of the freshmen placed in that remedial math course had passed a high school advanced math class being awarded on average an "A-" grade.  Source - Allysia Finley

  

However, even better than a remedial civics course is the growing number of state universities - University of Texas @ Austin (School of Civic Leadership), University of Tennessee @ Knoxville (Institute of American Civics), University of Florida, & the University of NC @ Chapel Hill - that feature dedicated centers or core requirements focused on foundational U.S. history & constitutional order.  These programs mandate general civic literacy or American history courses for all undergraduate students, functioning as foundational requirements rather than traditional remedial tracks.   

And state legislation in Ohio requires all students earning a bachelor's degree from an Ohio public school to take an American Civic Literacy course, backed by specialized campus civic centers focusing on foundational historical texts, free-market principles, & constitutional governance.  Under Ohio requirements, these American civic literacy courses include the study of specific primary source documents:

The entire U.S. Constitution & Declaration of Independence
At least five complete essays from the Federalist Papers
The entire Emancipation Proclamation & Gettysburg Address
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail
Writings of Adam Smith, including principles from The Wealth of Nations.

When the American Council of Trustees & Alumni (ACTA) recently did a survey of more than 3,000 college students entitled "How Well Do College Students Know America," the results were similarly bad to ones reported for years - but still alarming.  For instance only thirty-nine percent of students know that senators serve for six years and representatives serve for two years in the U.S. Congress & almost one in five checked "unsure" of any answer. See the entire survey questions & student responses here.

If improving these sad results is important to you do your country, your child, grandchild, or a young person you know a favor - ask them to try this ACTA mini civics quiz to see how young people you know measure up against today's poorly taught, or in many cases untaught or mis-educated college students.  If it is not much better than the current college kids' results you have work to do.

But in deciding how important the state of education in America is to you please consider the results of the Program for International Student Assessment's (PISA) 2025 report dated September 8, 2026.  PISA assesses the knowledge, skills, & attitudes of 15-year-old students every several years.  More than 760 000 students took the PISA science, mathematics and reading test in 2025 across 91 countries and economies, representing around 33 million 15-year-olds across the world.  The highest performers in math & science in the 2025 assessment were the Chinese jurisdictions of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang - no surprise since I have been writing about the same type of results for over 20 years.

The graphic below shows how the education of American & Chinese 15 year olds compare.  The scores represent the mean score for all the students taking the test in their country.  By this metric China is first in the world in math & science & second to Singapore in reading, although the U.S. had a 13% to 10% advantage over China in top tier readers.  This advantage disappeared when comparing the mean scores of the U.S. (490) & China (527) because the low tier readers in the U.S. were twice the number of the top tier readers thereby dragging down the mean score of the U.S in reading as shown on the graphic.

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In summary, China had 54% of their students score in the top tier high performing category (levels 5 & 6 in the report) in math compared to 8% for the U.S. & an average of 8% for the 38 countries that make up the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development).  For the top tier high performing category in science it was China 36%, U.S. 13%, & OECD average 7%, & for reading it was China 10%, U.S. 13%, & OECD average 6%.  The worst statistic for the U.S. is that China's math score improved 21 points from the last PISA test while the U.S. math score dropped 15 points to the OECD average as shown on the middle graphic above.  These figures do not bode well for the U.S. regarding the AI race with China & offer a sign of what Einstein thought could come in his quote above.

It is an understatement to say the U.S. is not a leader in the world regarding education prowess.  America's test score results are very average, trailing China, Singapore, Japan, Australia, Canada, UK, & Korea in every category & Germany in math & Estonia in both Science & Computational Problem Solving.  The results for all of the 91 countries and economies that participated in the PISA 2025 test are on the URL provided above.

Now the education & political problems that are debasing America will not be solved before the upcoming midterm elections or even by the results of the midterms no matter who wins.  A mindset change is needed that will require large efforts from all of us who are dedicated to stopping the Death of Democracy of the American republic.  We must all join together to expand the electoral choices to more than the one big government party with a Democrat wing & a Republican wing where we go back & forth choosing the lesser of two evils every election.  Voters known as "double haters" are increasingly viewing both Democrats & Republicans negatively - this gives us a chance for the needed mindset change.

Who could think that falling behind in education will turn out well for America?

Except for four countries near China, & China, that I called The Educated Corner Of The World as far back as 2011, the results of the PISA test deteriorated in 2025 thereby resulting in even a larger education gap between these five countries & those in the rest of the world.  Past PISA test scores along with the current one coupled with the NAEP scores that show over 50% of adults in America read @ an elementary school level, & are equally as woeful in math & science, puts America on the opposite end of the education gap with China.  The poorly educated American workforce is the principal reason for the income gap (known dysphemistically as income inequality by statists) & the resulting affordability problem that so many politicians feign concern about.  And affordability is only going to get worse based on these PISA scores for people who can find jobs as real inflation adjusted wages continue to shrink & more & more employers prefer robots over poorly educated untrainable people.

Earlier in this post I offered a way to start participating in the needed mindset change: namely, by determining & monitoring the quality of the education a young person you care about is getting.   After all, they will be the ones living in the unaffordable world with the tremendous education gap described above by both the test results & Jefferson's warning that an uneducated public leaves a society vulnerable to tyranny and manipulation.

An Appeal To Everyone Considering Voting For The Socialists In America

Well, the last post brought several comments & good discussions about our elections, especially highlighting the dissatisfaction, breakdown, & perceived decline in the quality of both our candidates & incumbents as well as the two party system itself.  It has once again become obvious that the two parties just take turns being in power @ the expense of the voters who let it happen.

One comment representative of the discussions - "Doug, I always appreciate your insightful posts. Our country is in such trouble. There has to be some new alternative to the two party system. I have become an independent myself" expressed the frustrations I heard.

It is easy for members of both the Republican & Democrat parties to be disgusted with both parties' terrible records especially since 2019.  Mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic caused by the Wuhan coronavirus including throwing thousands of dollars @ roughly 165 million to over 200 million people that led to the highest inflation in 40 years that produced the affordability crisis, where prices still regularly increase faster than wages resulting in unaffordable healthcare & high home prices with steep mortgages in a job market where the prospect of gainful employment that allows for self sufficiency remains elusive for both experienced people & recent college graduates with thousands of dollars of student loan debt outstanding; an attack on the Capitol after false claims of a stolen presidential election in which Trump tried to turn the Constitution on its head asking Pence to throw out electoral votes from states that had certified their votes for Biden; the election of Biden, a doddering old man whose ineptitude & incapacity were attempted to be hidden by the hostile anti-American media until revealed by Biden's nonsensical performance during the June, 2024 presidential debate & whose accomplishments in public office for half a century are nonexistent; a presidential election in 2024 where neither candidate deserved to be president & both had more people vote against them than for them; & the last two years of unconstitutional tariffs, a six month war with Iran that is being waged with no input from Congress or the tax paying public that has resulted in national average gasoline prices over $4 per gallon, & an anti-weaponization fund Trump plans to use to compensate people who assaulted police officers & marched to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to harm Mike Pence are all examples that display voter disgust. 

Some of the above examples of problems, complaints, & grievances against the two party system speak for themselves.  Below is a further drill down of others:

The median price of a previously owned house was $434,100 on July 31 - a 161% price increase since 2011.  To comfortably afford this median priced  house, a buyer generally needs an annual household income between $90,000 & $130,000 depending on location.  To appreciate the high home price problem in America consider that the median household income is $87,600.  Even considering regional variations in median household income of $94,650 in the West & $92,000 in the Northeast, a would-be median household income buyer barely makes it into the low end of the house affordability range.  And saving for the 20% down payment of over $86,000 in the low real interest rate environment is also very difficult if not discouraging.

I have found more & more people are becoming aware of the Social Security & Medicare insolvency problems that I have written about for decades.  These pending funding shortfalls currently scheduled for 2032 are still not recognized by enough people or any of our elected representatives.

Instead of working on shoring up the entitlement programs, Trumps' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is more concerned with making the next two years look good for Trump by trying to manipulate interest rates lower by two separate schemes.

The first scheme involves the Fed helping Japan strengthen the yen, following a 40 year low against the dollar, through Repurchase Agreements (RePos) where the Fed prints dollars to lend to Japan to buy yen with Japan's large stock of Treasury securities put up as collateral.  This arrangement expands the Fed's balance sheet, sending billions of dollars produced out of thin air into the economy, until Japan repurchases the securities with dollars per the terms of the RePo.  Coupling the higher global supply of weakening dollars with a stronger yen inevitably will lead to higher prices of Japanese exports to America - representing two thirds of the American-Japanese total merchandise trade while American exports to Japan representing one third of the  American-Japanese total merchandise trade are helped by these currency swings.  Bessent prefers the RePo intervention method rather than having Japan sell billions of dollars worth of Treasury securities on the open secondary bond market which would spike interest rates immediately @ a time, as usual, that Trump wants rates to drop.  Under Bessent's preferred approach he is betting that Professor Friedman is right when he taught that changes in the growth rate of the money supply, like under Bessent's RePo arrangement, take about two years to correlate with changes in inflation, & that the timing is "long and variable."  In short Bessent is counting on inflation not showing up under his RePo gambit until he & Trump are just about out of office when the inflation from the RePos can be blamed on the next president.  And to top it off after the RePo arrangement concludes everything is right back where it started - meaning Japan still has to solve their currency problem since nothing meaningful was accomplished toward meeting Japan's goal in the interim.  The advantage for Bessent & Trump is that the RePo intervention buys some time keeping interest rates lower than the Japanese dump of Treasury securities on the bond market alternative would - until after the midterm election.

The second scheme involves Bessent's plans to double the rate of buybacks of long term treasury securities (10 to 30 years) financed through the issuance of short term bills (weeks in duration).  Since this manipulation will reduce the supply of long term treasuries & increase the supply of short term bills, Bessent is counting on long term interest rates declining & new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh lowering the Fed's policy interest rate target range thereby lowering the government's interest payments - having his cake & eating it too in both the long & short term bond markets.  The idea is to please Trump, who would like to see interest rates near zero.  But the gross national debt exceeding $40 trillion, heavy AI data center corporate borrowing, & inflation persistently above the Fed's 2% target has helped the bond market see through Bessent's trickery & realize that we need real fiscal & monetary reform especially with the looming Social Security & Medicare insolvencies - Treasury debt has become harder to fund, sending the yields of both long term & short term debt higher.  And to his credit Warsh has not indicated that he will function as Bessent's banker, saying @ the recent Jackson Hole Wyoming symposium of central bankers that he didn't find financial conditions restrictive & that he hadn't been convinced that the underlying trend of inflation was improving.  Bessent's plan is nothing of substance - it runs from September 10 through November 4.  If the plan was a serious inflation remedy & not just a ploy to please Trump, why would it end the day after the midterm election?

So it's been a tiresome & costly seven years of the two parties taking turns being in power & with the above list of grievances it is no wonder that so many people are asking each other "How's that working out for you?"

The problem & solution really starts with the primaries.  Some of the 45% of voters who now identify as Independents may have precluded themselves from participating in the primary process.  If you are not registered as a Republican or Democrat in your state, check to see if you can vote in your state's next primary.  If your state has a closed primary (17 Democrat & 23 Republican) you will need to choose one party or the other in order to vote in the primary.  In an open primary state (18 Democrat & 14 Republican) a voter of any affiliation can vote in either primary & some states don't require voters to identify with any party affiliation when they register to vote.  In a semi-closed primary state (12 Democrat & 10 Republican) a voter registered as an Independent may choose to vote in either a Democrat or Republican primary.

Ballotpedia gives a good explanation of primary election types by state including an excellent interactive map that provides details for each state.

But dropping your registry with your previous party of choice is not the answer.  More than thirty million Independent voters have been excluded from the primary process across the country in recent years.  Far left & far right candidates thrive (i.e., get elected) in low turnout primary elections.  AOC won her primary by 1.9% after receiving 7.4% of the total registered vote in an election with 12.9% turnout in the summer of 2018.  And this past June voter turnout in NYC was between 18% to 25% of registered Democrats in each of the closed primaries for the three contested House nominations meaning less than 15% of the party electorate, no where near a majority, chose avowed socialists to represent the Democrat Party in the House midterms - source Mark Penn & Andrew Stein.

Not participating in the primary process leaves you with the choices of others & for @ least since the Covid-19 pandemic it is a choose your poison exercise.  Do you prefer strychnine, arsenic, anthrax powder, phosgene, or Tylenol made by McNeil Laboratories in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania in July 1982 that was laced with potassium cyanide?

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The other concern people expressed was DSA members &/or avowed socialists winning elections & turning the country socialist.  One person told me he has explained the problems with socialism & the benefits of capitalism to the point that he may be on the verge of losing lifelong friends.

I don't think you have to challenge the road to serfdom the way that Friedrich Hayek did in 1944 mostly because people today falling for DSA planks would not know what you are talking about quoting Hayek - since many of them don't know what socialism is.  They just know they are hurting.

A much better approach than arguing & losing friends is to review the DSA website & ask specific questions  to people considering voting for socialists based on the content of that website.

For instance:

1) Healthcare For All - "Guarantee universal healthcare @ no cost to individuals, including complete access to reproductive & gender affirming care.  Expand healthcare access & quality by investing (a capitalist word) in new public hospitals & clinics.  Make all medical education & training public & free."

Since the doctors in the new socialist system will not be going into private practice, where is the incentive for them to spend all of those years in medical school preparing to help people medically?  As the number of doctors dries up, where will the medical school professors come from to teach new medical school students, if any?  Can you see this plank leading to doctor shortages?

BTW - The word "investing" is primarily a capitalist term because it describes putting money or resources into private assets to make a financial profit.  Socialists generally avoid the word "investing" because it is tied to private financial gain. They prefer terms like "public funding," "social development," or "collective production."

2)  Prosecute U.S. & Israeli leaders responsibe for the genocide in Gaza.  

But another plank defunded the police & ended incarceration so what is the purpose of prosecution?

3)  Defund the Department of War.  End all foreign wars & close overseas military bases.  End economic warfare against countries whose governments act independently of the United States, such as Cuba, Venezuela, & Iran.

But how do we survive if they attack us?

4)  Grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status, provide a path to citizenship for all permanent residents, & end visa caps & quotas.

Do you do your part by filling your house with immigrants to live with you & your family?

5)  Housing For All - "Housing is a human right.  Build new, publicly-owned social housing, strictly regulate investment (capitalist term) properties, establish universal rent control, & guarantee the right to counsel for all tenants."

Strictly regulating investment properties & establishing universal rent controls gives the owners of these properties no incentive to maintain the properties thereby resulting in a deteriorating quality of existing housing leading to severe housing shortages that the proposed "new publicly-owned"  entity will have to address.  Can you see the problem taking human incentive out of the reason for owning property & people's need for shelter?  Can you see how this leads to underdevelopment?  And where will the counsellor come from since it will take years of going to law school for a lawyer to represent the person's rights as a tenant - same incentive problem as finding doctors in point #1 above.

These five examples give you an idea of how to go through the DSA website & point out some impracticalities with this brand of socialism.  You can also point out Shannon Bream's enlightening rapid-fire "true or false" list of platform positions to DSA national co-chairwoman Megan Romer on July 26 on FNC.

Do you think Romer's answers confirming or defending the following organizational positions during the segment is the answer to your personal dissatisfaction with the two party system - or is there something else in play?

Abolish the U.S. Senate: Confirmed as true. 
Replace the Presidency and Supreme Court: Confirmed as a goal to alter them from how they are currently known/structured.
Abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement): Confirmed with an "absolutely".
Abolish National Borders and Grant Amnesty: Confirmed as a long-term plan (including amnesty for individuals currently in the U.S. illegally).
Defund the Pentagon: Confirmed with an "absolutely". 
Abolish Prisons: Confirmed as part of a long-term program. 
Government/Public Ownership of Large Corporations: Confirmed the stance to end private ownership of major companies and transition control to the public.

In short, don't discuss socialism as a general idea but rather point out the specific real things it means to change people's lives, standard of living, & freedom.  Do Americans want public ownership of corporations where they work & have 401(k)s with significant company matches, wealth taxes where there never is enough money so the tax filters down to people in the middle income level, the Department of War defunded, publicly owned social housing, abolishing police, border patrol, & prisons, abolishing the Senate, expanding the number of Justices on the Supreme Court & making both the Supreme Court & president subordinate to Congress?

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Just like Hayek's dedication in The Road To Serfdom "to the socialists of all parties," I offer the following appeal for consideration to people dissatisfied with the goings on in America & are considering voting Democrat including for avowed socialists or DSA candidates.  The appeal does not go against the above advice in this post but can be used in conjunction with it as you think appropriate.

Dear Potential Voter Of Socialists:

Please meet me halfway in that I acknowledge you have a problem but it is not with capitalism & socialism is not the answer.  What you are frustrated with is not capitalism.  America is a mixed economy that is over 50% socialist - this is the country Millennials & Gen Zers know, have lived in all their lives, & were told was capitalism.

A free enterprise capitalist economy requires an educated & well trained workforce who create things of value for their employers to sell & wealth for themselves, &/or people who start new businesses who have common sense & the energy to make that business successful using the workforce as needed.  Over half of our adult  population reads @ an elementary school level & far too many Americans are dependent on several parts of the the 126 welfare programs identified by the Cato Institute. The Pew Research Center reports that more than 65% of millenials (people born between 1981 & 2005) support reducing military spending in order to preserve spending on these welfare programs.  This describes a socialist country whose candidates you are considering voting for far more than a capitalist country that you have never lived in. 

Just since the Covid-19 era (February 2020 to the present) the dollar has lost 22.5% of its value to inflation meaning prices have increased 29%.  One of the tenets of a capitalist country is sound money defined as something that is used as a medium of exchange, something that measures the value comparisons of the goods & services to be exchanged, & something that is an asset to hold that serves as a store of value & unit of account in contracts, investments, & savings.

Please consider the following graphic that shows the United States as a capitalist country using sound money based on gold & silver that produced steady price levels from 1800 until 1946 - the year that the U.S. declared federal policy & responsibility to promote purchasing power.  From that point on inflation debased the dollar 94.6% of its value meaning it takes over $18 today to buy what one dollar did in 1946, an increase of 1,735%.

Click on graphic to enlarge

Inflation makes it hard for a young entrepreneur to save $5,000 so that he can turn it into $10,000 & then $50,000 constant dollars.  A debased currency does not provide a steady unit of account for the growth described.  Instead the real growth to $50,000 is swimming in a sea of inflation that requires a constant calculation to determine the real after-inflation values of contracts, salaries, currencies, & investments.

The other problem a person starting a new business faces today in America is finding qualified help.  This brings us back to the need for an educated & well trained workforce.  Employers are addressing the shortage of qualified people by replacing poorly educated people with robots.  Have you been remiss in your own development of job skills & consequently AI is the reason for your dissatisfaction with life in America?  Socialism is not the answer to this either.

The last point I ask you to consider is the growth of the gross national debt to over $40 trillion that was reached on August 18, 2026.  Growth of this debt is a way of life for millennials & Gen Zers as evidenced by the following graphic.

Click on graphic to enlarge

You will note that $35 trillion of the $40 trillion was accumulated in the 21st century - virtually doubling under Bush, then again under BO, & then again under the combined nine & a half years under Trump & Biden.

Throughout America's free enterprise capitalist economy whenever debt was used to move production forward, like during wartime, that debt was paid off so that we would have the ability to call on borrowing again when needed,  See graphic below - note I have marked the five debt paydown periods: Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, & the Cold War arms race that led to the financial exhaustion & collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  Emphasis on the word Socialist.

Click on graphic to enlarge

There has been no attempt or even a mention to pay down the $40 trillion national debt which equals 125% of GDP - a figure well over what economists have shown makes for a less robust economy.  The five periods shown above paid down debt resulting from national defense expenditures.  The current $40 trillion debt represents money spent on the 126 welfare programs identified by the Cato Institute, which is more in line with a socialist country than a capitalist country.

In summary, you & I are really looking for the same thing but you are trying to find it in socialism.  I hope you see from my presentation that the America Millennials & Gen Zers have lived in all their lives is not the free enterprise capitalist country they were told it was.  It is a country eroded more & more every year by people making it more & more socialist.  You will have a much brighter future working to get America back to the pre 1930s mindset of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise.  It won't be easy as Mary O'Grady wrote twenty years ago this past August  "... what seems to be tempering the hope of even positive thinkers these days is the growing, sobering realization that the burden of socialism is exceedingly hard to throw off, even when patently obvious that it is the chief culprit producing underdevelopment, poverty, & misery." 

What you should be looking for is not socialism but a return to excellence.