Fellow Republicans, it’s time to admit that the US economy isn’t bad

The Republican primaries are under way and – not surprisingly – the candidates have been ganging up on Bidenomics. Spoiler alert: they don’t like it. Fact check: they are wrong.

To a man – and one woman – the Republican candidates all say that the US economy is bad and that Americans are struggling financially. They’re warning about sky-high deficits, over-the-top government spending and a potentially catastrophic level of national debt. They point out that interest rates are at a 20-year high and the costs of core things like food, gas and housing are significantly more than they were just a few years ago. They point to a downturn in manufacturing and falling small business confidence.

“Bidenomics is crushing American families,” said the Republican candidate Nikki Haley. “We’re paying more for gas, groceries and other basic necessities.”

“I’ll rip up Bidenomics on day one of my presidency,” the Florida governor and presidential challenger Ron DeSantis warned.

Yes, prices and rates are up. But really? Is the economy so bad? I’m a Republican and a small business owner with hundreds of clients in many industries and honestly the economy isn’t that bad. In fact, it’s been really, really good.

Just ask Donald Trump, who implicitly admitted this when he recently said he hoped for a “crash” and that it would “be in the next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover”.

If you don’t believe me, just look at the numbers.

Last quarter’s gross domestic product showed growth of 5.2%. That’s a number that dwarfs all other pre-Covid recovery numbers in recent memory. Unemployment is at a record low. Each month the economy is adding hundreds of thousands of new jobs. There are millions of more open jobs available today compared with