Marty Ryan previously published a version of this essay in the November 2024 issue of the Prairie Progressive.
Campaign strategist Jim Carville coined the phrase “[It’s] the economy, stupid” back in 1992 when he worked on Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. That phrase “was directed at the campaign’s workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on.”
Evidently, the intent, if not the quote, has come back to the 2024 campaign. U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been insisting in one of her campaign’s television commercials that “we gotta bring these prices down.” Good luck!
Don’t confuse inflation with the economy. Inflation is a part of the economy. The economy is the management of a government’s resources, such as money, prices of merchandise, services, and transportation. Republicans are attempting to blame “the economy” on Democrats.
Economic experts have attributed the country’s recent high inflation to the COVID-19 pandemic, which by early 2020 was beginning to affect markets, supplies, labor, services, and other aspects of the economy while President Donald Trump was in office. At least one Facebook meme shows that the price of a 128 fl. oz. bottle of orange juice in January of 2020 was $2.99. By January of 2024, the price had increased to $4.29 for the same bottle.
The Biden administration had very little to do with the surge in the price of orange juice, coffee, chocolate, gas, or many other consumer goods. Orange juice is a commodity that, in its frozen concentrate state, is traded at the Intercontinental Commodity Exchange Futures, which is “the exclusive global market” for frozen concentrate orange juice futures and options. As with the stock market, the government doesn’t control the orange juice market.
Myra Saefong reported for MarketWatch this month, “Florida’s orange production has dropped by an estimated 92% in 20 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, attributing the loss to natural disasters, such as freezing and hurricanes, and disease such as citrus greening.” The price of orange juice will likely rise more in the near future, since Hurricane Milton crossed the bulk of Florida’s orange tree orchards prior to harvest and created premature dropping of fruit on the ground.
Orange juice prices aren’t the only consumer costs the president and Congress can’t control. The stock market has been closing at record highs, and gasoline prices are below $3 per gallon across much of the nation. If you believe a president, Congress, or any governmental agency can control the price of gasoline, you probably believe U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene when she claims the government controls the weather.
As the cost of groceries, insurance, and energy continue to rise, think about the last time the cost of those items fell. If your grocery bill decreased, you most likely have fewer mouths to feed, or you altered your diet. If your insurance rates decreased, you changed your policy for one reason or another. And if your energy costs dropped, it’s almost certain that you moved, installed new windows, or decided to conserve. Weather can affect the cost of all three of those necessities. Drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, excessive rainfall, freezing weather here and anywhere in the world and disease play a major role in what we pay for essentials.
So why did Carville instruct Clinton’s campaign staff to focus on “the economy, stupid?” For the same reason Republicans are using the mantra today: because of the hit you take in the pocketbook. It affects everyone. Most of all, it works in an election year.
Don’t be fooled by talk of higher prices. Republicans are not going to bring down the price of orange juice. Prices are controlled by an economic model of price determination in a market called supply and demand. It’s economics, stupid!