Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
Before we get too far into the new year, let’s review the immediate past, present and future of America’s political, economic and social fabric.
Despite predictions of a recession in 2023, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Wall Street Journal: 1) Federal Reserve actions brought inflation down from 9.1 percent in 2022 to 3.1 percent, 2) 2023 annualized growth averaged around 3 percent, 3) new business startups came at a record pace, 4) the unemployment rate fell below 4 percent and 5) the typical middle-income households had higher earnings, more wealth and more purchasing power than before the pandemic.
Research reveals four economic measures paid off handsomely for Americans: the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $1.75 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $1.2 trillion Inflation Reduction Act and the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act. The economic reward includes the American economy producing more goods and services (up 2.6 percent); wage gains outpaced inflation and will be even more significant in 2024.
Last year also witnessed: a declining crime rate, U.S. carbon emissions falling below 2007 numbers and all three major stock indexes soared dramatically, boosting the retirement savings of more than 150 million Americans. For the first time in decades, people could earn around 5 percent from their savings and money market accounts, which increased the financial well-being of tens of millions of people. (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 30-31, 2023)
We’re witnessing a boom in cleaner energy, and the cost of metals used to make batteries will continue to remain low in 2024. Additionally, strong oil production growth in North America and increasing global refining capacity will keep gasoline prices down in 2024.
While the U.S. debt ceiling was raised by Congress on June 3, 2023, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives has only passed seven of the 12 appropriation bills they promised to approve in the fall. National debt remains a critical problem; it grew $8.2 trillion (40.43 percent increase) during Donald Trump’s presidency and $1.8 trillion (6.33 percent) since Joe Biden has been in the White House.
CRINK is the new acronym patriotic and democracy-loving Americans should remember: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. CRINK shows no signs of easing up on cyberattacks or inundating Americans with disinformation, misinformation, social media propaganda, artificial intelligence interference and fake political ads in 2024, similar to the 2016 presidential election. CRINK’s implicit and explicit war against Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel and the United States – to name a few targets – will continue. A strong president who opposes CRINK dictators versus honoring their autocratic leaders is paramount.
As the Supreme Court goes back into session, 5, all Americans hope the justices will decide: 1) what presidential immunity means, 2) what defines interfering with the counting of electoral votes, 3) whether states control the election process, 4) if a president is an “official” of the government (Section 3 of the 14th Amendment), 5) whether Trump engaged in reelection activities or presidential duties when he did nothing for 187 minutes during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and 6) if the Jan. 6 attack was a normal tourist visit or an insurrection.
While the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Pew Research Center polling shows 62 percent of Americans support pro-choice rights. Along with women’s right to reproductive health decisions, immigration reform will also – implicitly – be on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Bipartisan deals on immigration have eluded lawmakers and presidents for three decades. Knowing Congress is so divided and the asylum law is complicated, politicians will most likely kick the can down the road and claim the 300,000/month migrant issue will be settled on Nov. 5. Common sense tells us otherwise. For the record: Trump only had 517 immigration judges on the bench in 2020 and Biden increased that total by 42 percent (734 judges).
There are 8.75 million indigenous Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the United. Since the remaining 98 percent of Americans are descendants of an immigrant family, it is ironic – and a sad state of affairs – when the benefits of immigration are questioned and our elected delegates can’t resolve the issue.
Finally, after Nov. 5, Americans will know whether they remain in a democracy or have reverted to living in a populist authoritarian dictatorship.
Issues to be resolved – a multitude were not identified in this op-ed -- are plentiful. Ready or not, 2024, here we are.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.