The economy is one of the biggest issues this election cycle. In past elections where the economy has featured prominently, the biggest concerns are usually jobs or unemployment or fear of a recession. This year, and for the first time in generations, inflation is the big concern.

The most recent inflation reading of the consumer price index, the most closely watched inflation gauge, showed that inflation fell slightly to 3.4% for the year ending in April. While the data showed a decline, that number is still well above the 2% level that the Federal Reserve considers healthy.

The small downtick also follows months of increases. Late last year, inflation began falling quickly, leading consumers to believe the price-growth plague was coming to an end and the Fed would begin cutting interest rates. But those expectations have faded greatly as inflation readings in 2024 continue to disappoint.

A day before the CPI data were released, the producer price index, which gauges wholesale inflation, rose slightly once again, the third straight monthly increase.

Republicans are squarely blaming Biden for the high inflation and, in turn, the higher interest rates. They contend that a rash of federal spending under Biden artificially juiced demand and caused prices to rise, an attack they have used and will continue to use on the campaign trail.

“This report confirms that the grip of inflation won’t loosen anytime soon, even after 11 interest rate increases since March 2022,” House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) said after the latest CPI report. “The massive amount of federal spending by President Biden and Democrats has made this inflationary firestorm difficult to contain.”

Perhaps even more crucially for Biden is how the hotter numbers are shifting inflation expectations and consumer sentiment, which is how voters feel about the economy.

The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index plunged to 67.4 in May, down from nearly 77.4 in April, according to early numbers for the month. That marks a nearly 13% decline over just the past month alone and shows consumers are souring on the economy and their perceived economic conditions.

“This 10 index-point decline is statistically significant and brings sentiment to its lowest reading in about six months,” survey director Joanne Hsu said. “This month’s trend in sentiment is characterized by a broad consensus across consumers, with decreases across age, income, and education groups.”

Year-ahead inflation expectations also rose, as did long-run inflation expectations, another troubling metric for the Biden campaign.

An April Bloomberg News-Morning Consult poll found that a mere 18% of registered voters predict that inflation will improve by the end of the year, while 75% said they think it will either stay the same or actually get worse. Further, 70% say the overall U.S. economy is going on the wrong track.

Additionally, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to 97 in April, down from a revised 103.1 the month before. That marks the lowest consumer confidence reading in 22 months.

The expectations index, which tracks the short-term outlook of consumers for business, income, and labor market conditions, fell to 66.4 this month from 74 in March. An expectations index reading below 80 often signals a forthcoming recession, according to the Conference Board, more alarm bells for Biden.

“Confidence retreated further in April, reaching its lowest level since July 2022 as consumers became less positive about the current labor market situation and more concerned about future business conditions, job availability, and income,” Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board, said.

Dan North, a senior economist with Allianz Trade Americas, told the Washington Examiner after the release of the most recent CPI report that while it ticked down by a tenth of a percentage point, inflation has remained in a narrow band between 3% and 3.7% for nearly a year now, more than a full percentage point over what the Fed considers healthy.

The Fed has raised its interest rate target from 5.25% to 5.50%, the highest since the dot-com bubble at the turn of the century. The biggest question now is when the Fed will start cutting rates, although recent hotter-than-anticipated inflation reports have increased the odds of fewer cuts in 2024. Most investors expect the first rate cut to come in September.

North said the latest report doesn’t do much to move the needle toward quicker interest rate cuts.

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“It’s not enough to move the Fed by any means off of, in our opinions, September. It’s a good thing it’s not a surprise to the upside, which we’ve had too much of, but we’re still a long, long way from 2%,” North said.

If inflation readings keep showing little progress toward moving inflation down to the Fed’s goal, it could also push back the first rate cut until after the November elections, something that would further hurt Biden. Higher rates make things like buying a home or taking out a loan much more expensive for voters.

The Washington Examiner spoke to Lake, a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, on Wednesday while she was in transit to the southern border. The 54-year-old former TV news anchor and 2022 gubernatorial candidate said she wants bigger federal benefits for those who choose to have children.

“Right now, we have unsustainable U.S. birth rates, and that is going to destabilize our future growth,” Lake said. “We’ve got to bring our birth rates up, and I think that we need to incentivize and make it easier for people to have families.”

The U.S. total fertility rate was sitting at an average of 2.1 births per woman in 2007, but has fallen to 1.7 births per woman in 2021, according to the latest data. The replacement rate is 2.1.

Lake evoked European countries and said the “turmoil” is an example of “what happens when you don’t have babies of your own, and you have a wholesale import of a new population.”

Lake said that she doesn’t have a specific degree of increase in mind for child tax credit, but said it needs to be closely examined and expanded to a level where it is effective at incentivizing family growth and raising the birth rate.

“Our birth rate is declining at such a rapid rate that we’re going to be in big trouble,” she said.

The child tax credit, which has been revised by Congress multiple times in recent years, currently stands at $2,000 for minors. That is the level it was set at by the 2017 Republican tax overhaul.

The child tax credit was temporarily increased as part of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief legislation. The law raised it to $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for older children, with perhaps the biggest change being the removal of an income threshold for those who receive the funds. Thus, a family with no income or head of household working would also receive the full $3,600 or $3,000 payments. The boosted tax credit sunset at the end of 2021.

Republicans largely opposed the temporary pandemic-era expansion because of the lack of work requirements.

More generally, Republicans are divided on family benefits. Some favor lowering tax rates rather than increasing credits. Others, such as Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, have backed much larger benefits for parents.

Lake is the expected Republican nominee for Senate in the state. She is set to face Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in what is billed as tossup election, one which could decide control of the Senate. Gallego also supports a bigger child tax credit.

Experts debate how big government subsidies need to be in order to raise the birth rate. For instance, Hungary has massive benefits for motherhood, including upfront loans of $36,000 that get written off if parents have at least three children, but it is unclear just how well the policies have worked.

Lake warned that it is crucial for Republicans to gain control of the Senate and White House because “if we don’t win, we will watch the biggest tax increase foisted upon” Americans and small businesses. Lake argued that the 2017 tax cuts resulted in higher federal revenue by turbocharging economic expansion.

“Lower taxes increase economic growth,” Lake said. She also tied better economic conditions to the birth rate.

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“When President Trump gets back in and bring back brings back that roaring Trump economy, I think we’ll quickly see people wanting to be able to start families get married,” Lake said.

The Arizona Republican primary is on July 30.

The Senate voted 60-38 for a joint resolution that would nix the SEC policy. Several Democrats joined Republicans in voting to cancel the rule. The lawmakers used the Congressional Review Act to bat down the measure, but Biden still has the power to veto it, meaning that the vote was more symbolic in nature.

The resolution would cancel an accounting policy known as the Staff Accounting Bulletin 121.

That measure was intended to inform businesses about how to account for their cryptocurrency assets and said they should keep their assets on their own balance sheets. Opponents have argued that such a policy discourages companies and major custodians from holding crypto assets for customers.

The Congressional Review Act resolution already passed the House in a bipartisan 228-182 vote, with 21 Democrats joining Republicans in pushing to cancel the rule.

In a statement of administration policy threatening a veto, White House officials said the SEC crypto accounting provision “reflects considered SEC staff views” on the matter.

“Moreover, as explained in staff’s accompanying release, SAB 121 was issued in response to demonstrated technological, legal, and regulatory risks that have caused substantial losses to consumers,” the memo reads.

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Ahead of the vote, some groups have come out against the SEC rule. Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, executive director of the American Consumer and Investor Institute, said the accounting rule is “another misguided SEC policy” that has garnered bipartisan opposition.

“The rule itself is a disaster for retail investors, essentially precluding regulated banks from providing safe custody of digital assets,” she said in a statement.

Housing starts, the change in the number of new residential buildings that began construction, rose 5.7% from March to this past month, according to a Thursday morning report from the Census Bureau.

They are now at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.44 million. From April 2023, they fell 2%.

For permits to build, which are seen as a proxy for future construction, the rate of new permits last month was 2% below the rate in April of last year.

As of this week, the average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was nearly 7%, according to Mortgage News Daily, which tracks daily changes in rates. That is down from a recent peak of above 8%, although is still far higher than in the years prior to the pandemic.

There has been a unique dynamic at play in the housing market because of the higher mortgage rates. Many people are holding on to their existing homes and waiting to sell until mortgage rates are lower, creating a shortage of existing homes for sale.

At the peak of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve cut its interest rate target to near zero, and mortgage rates plunged to ultralow levels. At one point in early 2021, people were locking in 2.5% mortgages — the lowest level in postwar modern history.

The low rates prompted an explosion of homebuying and investment, generating an increase in home construction. But then, the dynamic began shifting fast when inflation increased, and the Fed hiked interest rates in response, thus pushing mortgage rates to the highest level since the turn of the century.

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New home sales increased 8.8% from February to 693,000, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau. The number of new home sales is 8.3% higher than it was in March of last year, owing in part to dampened inventory of existing homes.

Existing home sales in March fell 4.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the biggest decline in over a year. The rate of existing home sales was down 3.7% from the year before.

Brown, 40, isn’t a newcomer to politics. He unsuccessfully ran for a House seat in Texas in 2014 but gained nationwide attention when he launched a Republican primary campaign in Nevada to win a seat in the Senate in 2022. Brown was beat out by a Trump-backed candidate who lost in the general election.

Brown, should he win the GOP nomination, will face Rosen, who is in her first term in the Senate. Brown, a Purple Heart recipient who was injured by an improvised explosive device while serving in Afghanistan in 2008, generally espouses fiscally conservative views.

Trade

Some in the Republican Party have drifted away from free trade advocacy, especially after former President Donald Trump’s first term in office, which was marked by his imposition of major tariffs. While some of the Trump-era tariffs were done to help U.S. manufacturers and fix the trade balance, others, particularly those against China, were also punitive in nature.

Brown told the Washington Examiner during an interview this week that he generally prefers free trade but said tariff policy with China is different as it is part of broader “economic warfare” because of the threat that China poses.

“My position is that anytime we can achieve free trade, I think that should be the ideal,” Brown said.

Brown warned that tariffs can become a tax on consumers. That echoes the views of supply-side economists, who argue that higher tariffs squeeze consumers because companies end up passing on the increased costs to them.

Notably, President Joe Biden has largely maintained the China tariffs imposed under Trump, and just this week, the president directed his trade representative to increase tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act on $18 billion of imports from China.

Taxes

Brown, like other Republican candidates, sees extending the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, known as the Trump or Republican tax cuts, as the biggest tax priority heading into the Senate.

The law lowered taxes for both individuals and corporations. The provisions of the overhaul that affected individuals are set to expire next year.

Brown said he wants to see those provisions made permanent through action by Congress.

Brown said that by keeping taxes low, the federal government can raise more revenue because economic growth will accelerate. The idea that tax cuts can pay for themselves by spurring growth has been championed by supply-side economists like Art Laffer.

“I subscribe to the sort of tax and economics philosophy that raising taxes, while it does in theory and in practice sometimes produce more revenue, the best way to increase revenue for the government is actually by lowering taxes, lowering regulations, allowing the economy to boom,” Brown said.

The Senate hopeful said the excess revenue shouldn’t just go toward more spending but should be used responsibly and, in part, to help pay off the mounting national debt.

National debt and fiscal standing

This year, the government will be shackled with $870 billion in net interest costs. That is nearly 5.7% more than the $822 billion the government will spend on national defense, according to budget projections from the Congressional Budget Office.

Brown said tackling the debt is a major priority. He noted that many politicians throw around wide-ranging ideas but said there needs to be a debate over what actions to take to right the fiscal ship.

“Not just amongst the Senate and House, obviously, but there needs to be a national conversation about how we address this,” Brown said. “I think most people realize that it’s at a crisis; we have about a 10-year runway here before we’re sort of at the end of the runway. We’re at the end of the road there.”

The Medicare trust fund will be exhausted in 2036, and the combined Social Security trust fund will become exhausted in 2035, the programs’ trustees recently projected. The fact that the dates are still just over a decade away is another reminder of the fiscal cliffs that are looming large and the need for lawmakers to craft a plan to keep the programs solvent.

Energy prices

Inflation is the biggest problem on voters’ minds heading into the election, but Brown noted that higher inflation also goes hand in hand with higher energy prices facing Nevadans and said the issue is a major one for his potential constituents.

He noted that Nevada has some of the highest gas prices in the country. For instance, while the national average for a gallon of gas is about $3.60 per gallon, in Nevada, it is now more than $4.40 per gallon, according to AAA.

“That leads to higher costs not only just for a household but for businesses. It goes into the price of products that are moving across the country,” Brown said.

Brown also criticized the Biden administration for implementing regulations to curb climate change that he said are pushing up utility prices for many Nevadans.

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“It’s an enormous pressure on households, on businesses to really have to tighten the belt to be able to absorb those additional energy costs,” he said.

The Republican primary in Nevada will be held on June 11. Brown would face a tough challenge in Rosen, who first entered the Senate in 2019. The Cook Political Report lists the Senate race as a toss-up, one that could be a major factor in whether Republicans take control of the Senate.

Beyond this new mass layoff, the grocery chain is also requiring most of its remote employees to relocate to various offices, including in Bentonville, Arkansas, Hoboken, New Jersey, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Donna Morris, Walmart’s chief people officer, argued that this will bring more of its employees back together.

“In addition, some parts of our business have made changes that will result in a reduction of several hundred campus roles,” Morris said in the memo. “While the overall numbers are small in percentage, we are focused on supporting each of our associates affected by these changes.”

The exact number of cuts that will take place in this mass layoff has not been revealed. 

The announcement of these layoffs comes ahead of Walmart’s quarterly earnings conference on Thursday, which will cover the company’s first 2025 financial quarter. The results for this quarter will be released Thursday at 7 a.m.

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Last month, Walmart unveiled a new bargain brand it is adding to its grocery lineup, Bettergoods, likely as a means to combat inflation. This brand features products priced between $2 and $15, with a majority of items costing under $5.

The Washington Examiner contacted Walmart for comment.

The decline in inflation is a welcome development for the Federal Reserve as it considers when it will begin cutting interest rates. It is also helpful for President Joe Biden. The White House has been emphasizing any positive inflation data alongside the country’s robust labor market as “Bidenomics” in action.

On a month-to-month basis, inflation rose 0.3%.

“Core inflation,” which doesn’t include volatile food and energy prices, fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.6% for the year ending in April. Overall, core inflation has generally trended down over the past 12 months in a sign that the Fed’s tightening is starting to pay off.

Dan North, a senior economist with Allianz Trade Americas, told the Washington Examiner that while the report is welcome, inflation has more cooling to do before the Fed can start eyeing interest rate cuts.

“For the first time in a few months, it looks like we’re pretty much on expectations, which is great, didn’t get a hot number,” North said. “But if you still look at year-over-year on the headline, we’re not moving anywhere yet. This will be the 11th month in a row that it has been between 3% and 3.7%. If you look at the chart, it’s just trading in a range.”

Both housing costs and some energy costs pushed the CPI higher last month. Shelter costs rose 0.4% over the month and 5.5% over the year. Shelter and gasoline prices contributed to a whopping 70% of the monthly increase in overall inflation.

The energy index rose 1.1% over the month as most of its component indexes increased. Energy prices are now up more than 2.6% from this time last year.

Also this week, inflation as measured by the producer price index rose to 2.2% for the year ending in April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported. On a month-to-month basis, the price index increased by 0.5%, more than expected.

Annual inflation in the CPI peaked at about 9% in June 2022, and while it is now much lower than it was, price growth is still running uncomfortably higher than the Fed’s preferred 2% level.

Inflation has been blamed on various factors on both the supply and demand sides of the equation. Republicans have argued that the explosion of stimulus spending during the pandemic and ultralow interest rates supercharged price growth. Democrats have been pointing to supply-side problems and noted that inflation increased in most Western countries and not just the United States.

Biden has become a major target of voters’ ire over the higher prices. Biden’s economic approval rating is underwater, hamstringing him in his contest with former President Donald Trump, who is the expected Republican nominee.

Consumer sentiment has also recently dipped amid several hotter-than-anticipated inflation reports.

An April Bloomberg News-Morning Consult poll found that a mere 18% of registered voters predict that inflation will improve by the end of the year, while 75% said they think it would either stay the same or get worse. Additionally, 70% said the overall economy is going on the wrong track.

Inflation and higher interest rates are overshadowing some positives in the economy. In many ways, the economy is not sputtering and has remained relatively robust. GDP growth, a broad measure of the country’s economy, has been positive, while the unemployment rate remains at low levels, historically speaking.

But there have been some signs the labor market is starting to weaken.

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The economy added 175,000 jobs in April versus 315,000 the month before, and the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to 3.9%. Also, the number of new applications for unemployment benefits rose by 22,000 to 231,000, according to the most recent data — that marks the highest number of jobless claims in about nine months.

While the timing of a Fed rate cut is still quite uncertain, two factors could speed the timeline up. First, if inflation begins to fall back to that 2% goal, the Fed could hike sooner rather than later. Second, signs of a major slowdown in the labor market could lead Fed officials to cut rates out of fear of a recession.

April marks the third straight rise in the headline inflation rate, the opposite of the trend sought by the Federal Reserve and a warning sign for President Joe Biden.

Most economists had forecast annual inflation would tick up by this much, so the reading was in line with expectations.

On a month-to-month basis, the price index increased by 0.5%, more than expected.

“Net, net, inflation at the producer level is back on the front burner this month and consumers are sure to feel the heat as higher production costs will feed into the inflation they see in the goods and services they buy,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS.

Core PPI inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy metrics, rose to 2.4%, also in line with expectations.

The Fed has raised its interest rate target to 5.25% to 5.50%, the highest since the dot-com bubble at the turn of the century.

Recent inflation reports have come in hotter than anticipated, with the consumer price index rising to 3.5% in March. Because of the hotter inflation prints, coupled with the insulation of the strong jobs market, many investors began to expect that the Fed would hold off on cutting rates until after the November election.

The labor market has remained above water despite the interest rate increases.

But the most recent jobs report showed some signs of slowing down.

The economy added 175,000 jobs in April versus 315,000 the month before, and the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to 3.9%.

Additionally, the number of new applications for unemployment benefits rose by 22,000 to 231,000 last week, the highest number of jobless claims in about nine months.

The most recent data show job openings fell 3.7% in March to just under 8.5 million, the lowest level of openings since February 2021. The job opening numbers fell below expectations, continuing a trend of slowly declining job openings over the past few years.

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A softening labor market could cause the Fed to cut sooner rather than later, but if inflation remains elevated, the situation will be difficult for the central bank. Top Fed officials have said bringing inflation down to its normal level is its highest priority.

Higher interest rates are bad news for Biden in an election year. Biden’s economic approval ratings have been hamstrung by high inflation coupled with the higher interest rate environment. Higher rates make things like buying a home or taking out a loan much more expensive for voters.

During his first term, Trump oversaw an economy that expanded every quarter of his presidency, save during the pandemic, and featured low unemployment before the pandemic took hold, a scenario that Team Trump is trying to recreate should he win in November.

The former president is looking to contrast his economic agenda with that of President Joe Biden, who, despite boasting strong job numbers and a post-pandemic economic expansion, has been mired in low economic approval ratings due to high inflation and high interest rates.

Renewed and escalated trade war

Trump’s four years in office featured a historic shift in trade policy, particularly for a Republican president, given the GOP’s longtime focus on free trade and the reduction of barriers to global commerce. A second Trump presidency would not only continue the trend of higher tariffs and more restrictive trade policies, something that Biden has largely continued, but would go even further.

The centerpiece of Trump’s trade proposals is the passage of a law called the Reciprocal Trade Act, which would allow the president to unilaterally impose tariffs of equal size placed by other countries on the U.S.

“We have been a country that was disrespected on trade, and frankly, disrespected on just about everything,” Trump said in a video posted to his campaign website.

Trump has also floated 10% across-the-board tariffs, which would be an aggressive escalation.

Trump’s tariff policy proposals are billed as narrowing the trade deficit and supporting domestic manufacturing jobs. The push is also advertised as safeguarding the country’s supply chains, which, as the pandemic exposed, are often reliant on foreign nations for critical goods such as medicines and certain minerals.

The trade platform planks also come with a major element of competition with China. One of Trump’s advisers on trade, former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, is a top China hawk. He contends that the shift in China policy ushered in under Trump is here to stay.

“It’s hard to remember how we thought about China six years ago, but certainly the Obama administration and most Americans didn’t realize the extent to which they were a hostile force and a hostile adversary,” Lighthizer told the Washington Examiner last year.

And that logic has held up. Biden has largely maintained the China tariffs imposed under Trump, and just this week the president directed his trade representative to increase tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act on $18 billion of imports from China.

Removing Biden energy rules

Biden dramatically expanded rulemaking during his time in office and, in particular, made prioritizing efforts to curb climate change a priority. A second Trump presidency would be expected to unravel many of those regulatory changes.

For instance, in late March, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that enacts stronger tailpipe emission standards for vehicles, such as freight trucks and buses, created between 2027 and 2032. Last month, the agency finalized rules to limit power plant emissions that Republicans say would shutter coal plants.

Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner during an interview on Monday that while there will be some energy rules that Trump, if he gets a Republican-controlled Congress, will be able to roll back quickly using a legislative tool called the Congressional Review Act, others will take a bit more time.

A GOP-controlled Congress can efficiently reverse final regulations using the CRA if the Biden-era rules in question are introduced 60 working days before this session of Congress ends. The deadline for that is thought to be around the end of May.

When Trump entered office back in 2017, he used the CRA to rescind more than a dozen Obama-era rules, many of which related to energy and the environment.

Crews said other rules a second Trump administration may target come largely from both the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. Because those rules won’t meet the 60-day deadline for a CRA, the Trump administration would have to work a bit harder to unravel them.

“So what will happen with those rules instead is there will be court challenges, and then the Trump administration will try to rewrite those rules,” Crews said of the rules prior to the CRA deadline.

The Biden administration seems aware of the possibility of Trump sweeping into office and bulldozing its legacy of environmental regulations and is trying to jam through final rules now in order to avoid rescission by CRA.

“Biden is making it as difficult for Trump as possible by putting these big fat rules through really quickly, getting them in before the summer, and they’re vulnerable to overturn,” Crews said.

Limiting immigration

Trump and Republicans have made paring back immigration and protecting the border their top campaign priority. Trump has made the immigration issue not only one of law and order and public safety but also an economic issue.

In a series of videos posted to his campaign website, Trump noted that the U.S. is trillions of dollars in debt and said Biden is trying to give public benefits to migrants through higher taxes.

“So not only is Crooked Joe surrendering your borders and your sovereignty, he is stealing your hard-earned money to redistribute it to people who have no business being in our country,” Trump said.

For years, there have also been fears that waves of immigrants would replace jobs for Americans who are already in the U.S. Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, said the jobs that are replaced are typically those at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum who need them the most.

“Historically, whenever you’ve got people coming in at the lower end of the economic spectrum with very limited skills, they don’t tend to eat the lunch of journalists and academics,” Hankinson told the Washington Examiner. “They eat the lunch of Americans who have maybe a high school diploma at best … in many ways the new illegal immigrant wave is competing with the last wave of legal immigrants.”

Tax cuts

The biggest legislative change to economic policy during Trump’s first term was the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, known as the Trump tax cuts or Republican tax cuts. That law lowered taxes for both individuals and corporations, although many provisions of the bill are set to expire next year — and some already have.

Dan Savickas, director of policy at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said that preserving and extending those provisions will be a major priority for a new Republican administration.

“So implementing something that has a little bit more staying power or building off of what TCJA started … I think that’s the spot to start,” he told the Washington Examiner, “because a lot of those benefits and a lot of those things for businesses that they have come to rely on or see as permanent are not in fact permanent.”

Steve Moore, an informal Trump adviser and a Heritage Foundation economist, said he thinks a major priority for Trump will be keeping individual tax rates low in order to avoid tax hikes for the middle class.

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“We want to make sure the lower rates stay in effect,” Moore told the Washington Examiner, noting that the cut in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% was permanent.

Moore also pointed out that the Trump tax cuts doubled the standard deduction that the vast majority of taxpayers take instead of itemizing.

This $5 meal option would give consumers a choice between a McChicken sandwich or a McDouble cheeseburger, in addition to a side of french fries and a soft drink, according to a report.

All four of these items are available on the McDonald’s $1-2-3 Dollar menu, though some have criticized this menu for having no items on the menu that cost only $1.

McDonald’s has received complaints from consumers regarding the chain’s rising prices, and executives have said the chain would work to offer more deals. While sales increased 1.9% between January and March, it is below the 2.1% increase that had been forecast.

“The consumer is certainly being very discriminating in how they spend their dollar,” McDonald’s President and CEO Chris Kempczinski said. “It may be more pronounced with lower-income consumers, but it’s important to recognize that all income cohorts are seeking value.”

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The report of McDonald’s plan to introduce a $5 meal option comes as Wendy’s, another fast food chain, already offers a $5 “Biggie Bag” to customers. When purchasing this, customers get a burger, a small order of fries, four chicken nuggets, and a soft drink.

The Washington Examiner contacted McDonald’s for comment.