If you thought Virginia Democrats were “moderate” — especially Abigail Spanberger, the new governor — you might want to think again.
“They are only getting worse. And this should be remembered when it comes to the midterms. Let me just give you a few things that they are proposing. Taxes and economic policy is becoming full-fledged Marxist,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck explains, adding, “They are proposing new and expanded taxes.”
“What a surprise. They have introduced bills now that will expand the sales tax base to include services like landscaping, gym memberships, vehicle repairs, food delivery, home repairs, raising the revenue beyond the traditional goods, the progressive income tax brackets,” he continues.
But that’s not all.
“They are now proposing creating new tax brackets, higher tax brackets, meaning people with taxable income over a certain threshold, they’re saying $600,000, will pay higher rates than those with lower incomes,” Glenn explains.
“This one I really love,” he continues, reading, “Federal employee tax.”
“The federal employee will get a tax break versus everybody else. There are proposals now that will give special tax subtractions for retired federal employees and incentives for federal retirees. While you, who didn’t ever work for the government, you’ll see a broader tax increase,” he says.
They’re not only going after taxes — but guns as well.
“They’re also trying to have a mandatory waiting period on gun purchases. A ban on leaving your gun unattended in your vehicle ... also a state firearm purchaser licensing system. That sounds really good,” Glenn says.
“An 11% tax on ammunition and guns and civil liability for the gun industry participants for crimes committed using guns that they sold or built. Oh, OK, that’s really good,” he mocks.
“They’re trying to enact, you know, more DEI and ESG stuff. ... They want to expand racial bias and diversity training for professionals, nurses, real estate agents, and law enforcement. Now why does the real estate agent need diversity training?” he asks.
“Let me lay down the biggest warning I could possibly lay down, and I’m not going to dwell on it or spend time today on this. The scariest people in Nazi Germany did not wear the black uniforms. ... They were the nurses and doctors. Do not train them in any of this DEI, any of this bull crap,” he continues, adding, “It’s very dangerous.”
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
You won’t hear many people object to President Trump’s executive order to ban corporate purchases of residential homes. The idea sounds like common sense. But it targets a minor symptom while leaving the real disease untouched — and in some respects, it risks making that disease worse.
Institutional home-buying already peaked during the COVID-era bubble and has receded since then. In most markets, corporate ownership represents a small share of total inventory. Even at its height, it never explained why housing costs exploded for everyone else. High prices created the opportunity for institutional buyers, not the other way around.
The goal should not be cheaper debt. It should be cheaper homes.
Government policy inflated the housing market. Institutional buyers simply responded.
During COVID, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates toward zero. Mortgage rates fell below 3%. At the same time, the Fed bought roughly $2.7 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, and HUD expanded “affordable homeownership” programs that widened the pool of subsidized buyers. Those policies produced predictable results.
When the government offers 2.5% interest for 30 years — often paired with minimal down payments backed by the FHA — buyers flood the market. Sellers respond by raising prices. The bubble becomes a feature, not a bug.
Institutional buyers entered that environment because it looked like easy money. Higher home prices also pushed rents up, so developers built more homes for long-term rental. Both trends flowed from the same source: a government-shaped market that made housing unaffordable, then subsidized the unaffordability.
Trump now seems focused on the symptom — corporate buyers — while ignoring the machinery that inflated the market in the first place.
He has spent months fighting Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to bring rates back down toward zero. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve still holds about $2.1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities. Trump has also announced a plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase another $200 billion in MBS. The stated goal is to lower mortgage rates.
But the goal should not be cheaper debt. It should be cheaper homes.
Artificially lowering rates props up prices and slows correction. Prices in many markets have begun to soften. That correction should continue. Policies designed to suppress rates will keep prices elevated and risk inflating the next bubble.
That brings us back to corporate home-buying. Even at the COVID peak, institutional buyers — defined as entities owning at least 100 single-family homes — owned about 3.1% of the housing stock. That number has since fallen to around 1%. Investors see the market turning, and they have started backing away.
So Trump’s corporate-purchase ban arrives late, targets a relatively small share of the market, and risks becoming cosmetic cover for policies that keep the bubble inflated.
If Trump wants to drive prices down and permanently realign housing with median incomes, he has to reverse the policies that inflated the bubble. That means attacking the structure, not the headline.
Get government out of the mortgage market. Trump’s next Federal Reserve chair must commit to unwinding the Fed’s mortgage-backed securities portfolio. That $2.1 trillion cushion keeps mortgage rates lower than the market would otherwise set. Those artificially low rates inflate home prices.
End universal “homeownership for everyone” policy. The federal government keeps subsidizing buyers who are not ready to buy. Those programs inject cash into housing demand that would not exist in a real market. The goal should align prices with income, not chase a utopian dream of universal ownership. After decades of subsidies, deductions, and federal credit support, the home ownership rate still sits around the mid-60% range.
Stop chasing near-zero interest rates. A 30-year loan at 2% sounds appealing until you realize what it does to prices. Cheap money bids up homes across the board. Buyers pay the price forever even as politicians brag about the “deal.” Trump should let the market set rates. Recent rate cuts have not restored normal home buying either. Sales remain weak because prices remain too high.
End the 30-year fixed mortgage. Instead of floating longer loans — 50 years? Madness! — the country should move in the opposite direction. Before the New Deal era, short-term mortgages, often three to seven years, dominated the market. Federal policy transformed that structure.
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Housing Act of 1934, establishing the Federal Housing Authority. The FHA insured long-term, fully amortizing mortgages with fixed rates, low down payments, and standardized payment schedules. That system moved the market away from short-term balloon loans and laid the foundation for longer terms.
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Congress eventually authorized the 30-year mortgage in 1954. VA loans under the GI Bill and the expansion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac later built a secondary market that made long-term fixed-rate loans attractive to lenders.
Government insurance, guarantees, and liquidity support made 30-year fixed mortgages feasible, which is why they represent 80%-90% of U.S. mortgages today. Without those interventions, lenders would not carry that risk.
The larger point remains simple: Sellers can’t charge prices buyers can’t pay. Prices explode only when government subsidies and government-backed long-term debt expand what buyers can “afford” on paper.
Unwind the subsidies. Unwind the guarantees. Unwind the cheap-money machinery. Let incomes, not federal policy, set the ceiling.
Housing should function like other consumer markets, not be engineered by Washington. Prices should reflect what people earn.
That’s the fix. Everything else treats symptoms and pretends to solve the problem.
Ten months ahead of November’s midterms, political and economic crosscurrents are colliding. Which of these conflicting trends prevail will greatly shape the next two years. And possibly even longer.
Midterm elections are always important. Besides gauging the country’s political mood, they have proven integral to maintaining America’s political equilibrium.
For good or ill, incumbent presidents and their party own the economy. The question is: Which economy will Republicans own?
They are the “ebb” to the “flow” of America’s political tide. Historically, every four years a large tide of voters go to the polls and elect a president. Then every two years, the large voter flow ebbs back, and the president’s party suffers accordingly.
This midterm is particularly important to Trump because he has proven susceptible to being baited by his opponents. After 2018, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) returned to the House speakership and unrelentingly harassed Trump over the last two years of his first term. These distractions and obstructions — especially during COVID — were undoubtedly a factor in Trump’s narrow 2020 Electoral College defeat.
Today’s political crosscurrents are pronounced. We know the president’s party historically loses seats. The last two two-term presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, suffered congressional losses averaging 22 House seats and 7.5 Senate seats.
Such losses would hand Democrats control of Congress, giving them a House majority larger than Republicans’ narrow edge and a Senate majority bigger than the GOP’s current six-seat margin. Such outcomes would end Trump’s legislative agenda, and Democrats could set their own. To understand the potential impact, play back the recent funding impasse when Democrats shut the government down for the longest period ever — despite lacking control of either chamber.
While Trump would be able to veto Democratic legislation and Republican numbers would be ample to uphold his vetoes, Democrats would have a formal hand in shaping the political agenda. This could greatly help their 2028 presidential prospects.
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Current politics are blunting the historical midterm flow, however. Trump is divisive, with just a 43.4% favorable rating; however, his job approval rating of 43.1% is higher than Obama’s (42.4%) at the same point in his second term. Further, Democrats are in abysmal shape with just a 32.5% favorability rating.
The current 2026 political map is also favorable to Republicans. While they have more seats (22 to 13) to protect in the Senate, the toss-up seats are evenly split: Republicans with Maine and North Carolina; Democrats with Georgia and Michigan. Mid-decade House redistricting efforts are also likely to favor Republicans somewhat; if the Supreme Court should allow race to be disregarded in drawing House districts when it rules on the Louisiana case currently before it, then even more redistricting could occur and amount to an even greater Republican advantage.
Today’s economic crosscurrents are equally pronounced. For good or ill, incumbent presidents and their party own the economy. The question is: Which economy will Republicans own?
At the micro level, the growing issue is “affordability.” Nationally, this is an overhang of inflation that surged during Biden’s administration and peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 — a 40-year high.
Locally, affordability played well in New York City (which has been plagued by Democratic policies of rent control and excessive taxation, regulation, and litigation) in 2025’s mayoral race. It also played well in Virginia, where it linked powerfully into the record-long government shutdown. Democrats are therefore seizing on the issue with some success — particularly in the establishment media — and are trying to nationalize it.
At the macro level, the economy is a different story. Despite “expert” predictions that Trump’s tariffs, green agenda rollback, attack on illegal immigration, and reduction in government would combine to wreck the economy, the reverse has occurred. In Trump’s first two full quarters in office, GDP is averaging over 4% growth: up 3.8% in the second quarter and 4.3% in the third. Inflation has also been moderate — 2.7% in November — certainly not the spike experts predicted and a far cry from the previous four years.
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So politically, depending on your perspective, Republicans look to outperform historically. Their Senate majority looks safe for now, with the chance that Republicans could even gain a seat or two. By contrast, Republicans’ House majority looks vulnerable; this could be offset slightly by current mid-decade redistricting efforts. Yet even just half the average loss of the last two administrations in their second midterms would mean an 11-seat swing and a 226-209 Democratic majority.
Economically, the question is whether the micro or the macro prevails. Can the micro become a national mood outside Democratic areas, or will the macro of strong GDP growth and moderate inflation have time to prevail? Expect political midterm fortunes to respond accordingly.
What is certain is that the midterms will shape the last two years of Trump’s second term. And possibly determine who will run and who will win the presidency in 2028.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
Having identified a problem they created, Democrats are now blaming “affordability” on Republicans. It is a striking display of audacity — the very definition of chutzpah.
For more than a year, Democrats have struggled to find a message that resonates because they keep recycling losing ones. They have lashed out at immigration enforcement —storming ICE facilities, attacking ICE officers, and defending violent illegal aliens.
Democrats are now left with a single strategy: campaigning on the consequences of their own incompetence and hoping voters forget who caused them.
They voted for the largest tax increase in U.S. history by opposing the extension of the 2017 tax rates under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
They continue to cling to climate alarmism even as the rest of the world moves on.
They remain soft on crime, opposing President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in cities where criminals run rampant and law-abiding citizens live in fear.
And in a final act of desperation, they triggered the longest federal government shutdown in history — before caving and achieving nothing.
Same issues. Same failure to connect.
The results speak for themselves. Democrats’ favorability sits at an abysmal 32.5%, well below Republicans’ 38.2% and far below President Trump’s 43.8%.
Then came Zohran Mamdani, the neophyte New York Democratic Socialist who toppled Democrats’ old guard in consecutive elections — first Mayor Eric Adams, then former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani did what Democrats have always done: promise voters lots of free stuff. Only he did it on a far grander scale — buses, housing, child care, grocery stores.
Faced with his success, Democrats opted for the familiar response: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. They sanitized Mamdani’s socialism, rebranded it as “affordability,” and declared it their new cause.
That affordability is now Democrats’ issue should surprise no one. After all, they caused the crisis they now loudly lament.
Start with New York City, where affordability has collapsed most dramatically. According to Visual Capitalist’s ranking of America’s least affordable cities, Manhattan is No. 1, Brooklyn ranks sixth, and Queens seventh. In fact, the top 10 least affordable cities are overwhelmingly governed by Democrats and located in Democrat-dominated states: New York, Hawaii, California, and Massachusetts. By contrast, nine of the 10 most affordable cities are in Republican-dominated states.
The reasons are no mystery. They are the left’s preferred policies: high taxes that drive up the cost of living and chase out taxpayers; rent control that discourages new construction and fuels homelessness; and excessive regulation and litigation that inflate the cost of everything they touch.
The same pattern holds at the state level. U.S. News and World Report lists the 10 least affordable states, and the top six are California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Washington, and New York. Nine of the 10 are blue states. Florida — the lone red-state exception — also boasts the No. 1 economy, ranks second in education, levies no state income tax, and continues to attract new residents in large numbers. Meanwhile, all 10 of the most affordable states are Republican-led.
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What about inflation? Isn’t that a national problem?
Yes, but inflation didn’t materialize out of thin air. It began under the Biden administration, reaching a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022. CPI-U inflation was just 1.4% when Biden took office in January 2021. By March, it had nearly doubled. By June, it had surged to 5.4%. By December, it hit 7%. A year later, it still stood at 6.5%. Inflation did not fall below 3% until July 2024 — the 43rd month of Biden’s presidency.
Excessive Democrat spending fueled this surge. From fiscal years 2021 through 2024, the Congressional Budget Office shows cumulative deficits of $8.9 trillion, driven by roughly $8 trillion in spending above the pre-pandemic baseline. The only reason Democrats didn’t spend more is that members of their own party balked.
Inflation works like weight gain: it comes on fast and comes off slowly. Even when the rate of inflation declines, prices remain higher. There is no economic Ozempic. Americans are still paying the price for four years of Democratic fiscal gluttony.
None of this has stopped Democrats from claiming “affordability” as their issue — or from demanding more of the same policies that caused the crisis in the first place: higher spending, higher taxes, and more regulation.
Stripped of winning ideas, Democrats are now left with a single strategy: campaigning on the consequences of their own incompetence and hoping voters forget who caused them.
The real tragedy behind the Minnesota welfare scandal is an underclass trapped in poverty by 'anti-poverty' programs.
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