Joe Biden recently spoke lied about his “economic vision for this country.” It is, as he loves to say, not a joke.

He opined about “building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not trickling down.” He said he came to office wanting “to change the economic direction of this country.” He teased about opponents calling his program “Bidenomics” and instead embraced and attempted to redefine the term. Despite supposedly overcoming even the doubts of “some on my own team,” he declared, “Our plan is working.”

Boy howdy is it working — and that’s terrible for the country.

To be sure, not everything’s bad. We’ve somehow avoided sustained recession. The stock market is on the upswing. Unemployment is very low. Gas prices are stable. The rampant inflation of the last two years is slowing.

But to redirect Barack Obama’s infamous comment to Joe Biden: “You didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

That somebody else, frankly, is Donald Trump. To oversimplify things, he signed economy-spurring tax cuts into law early in his presidency and deregulated government to get it out of the way. The lasting effects of the subsequent stellar growth helped us survive COVID and even, so far, the pandemic of Biden’s socialist-light policies.

Think we’re being too partisan? Well, Biden and his staff are out there claiming credit for creating the jobs that all existed during Trump’s administration. They’re not putting it that way, of course, instead dishonestly framing it as Biden’s doing. “Over 13 million new jobs since I’ve been elected to office,” Biden said, “more jobs than any president has ever created in their first two years.”

Our Douglas Andrews aptly explained why Biden’s boast is a lie, but for now suffice it to say that even if presidents created jobs, people going back to jobs they lost isn’t “creating” jobs.

Biden and his lackeys are doing the same thing with inflation. “What is Bidenomics?” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pretended to answer. Well, for one thing, she said, “Inflation cut in half.”

It’s easier to cut something in half if you exponentially increase its size first. And inflation is still rising, not falling.

Don’t miss the importance of this context when reading misleading headlines about today’s 3% inflation report. When Biden came into office, annualized inflation was 1.4%. The moment he and his party rammed through the American Rescue Plan, pouring trillions more special-interest tax dollars into an already overheating recovery, inflation began soaring. The annualized rate nearly doubled between March and April 2021 and continued rising for well over a year, topping out at 9.1% in June 2022. Since then, the annualized rate has gradually fallen to 3.0% last month, the lowest level since March 2021. That still means prices are rising, and remember, the Federal Reserve’s goal is that prices rise “only” 2% every year.

More importantly, cumulative inflation is over 16% since Biden took office, though even that’s not quite a full picture of the devastation brought to family budgets since Biden “rescued” us.

Is anything less expensive than it was when Biden took office?

Bought a fast-food combo meal recently? It might have been 50% more expensive that it was in 2020. Purchased a car (if you could find one)? Again, probably 30% to 50% pricier than it used to be. Gas prices are stable, but when Trump left office, the national average price was $2.39 a gallon. Today, after receding from a high of $5.02, it’s still $3.54, or 48% higher.

Then there are house prices. Younger prospective buyers are being priced out of the market because home prices are so much higher and because interest rates are more than double what they were two years ago — and the Federal Reserve isn’t done raising them. That makes the long-term price of a house literally hundreds of thousands of dollars more than under Trump.

High valuation also jacks up homeowners’ insurance and property taxes, which many people pay in mortgage bills that are suddenly hundreds of dollars more expensive every month. The same goes for the insurance cost of owning automobiles — especially the vastly more expensive electric ones Biden wants to force everyone to drive.

Bloomberg reports that inflation’s so bad “Americans are cutting back on personal hygiene products.” If that keeps up, Creepy Joe’s not going to want to sniff people anymore.

“Our plan is working,” says Joe Biden.

If this weren’t a family publication, we’d direct some of Biden’s own foul language right back at him. Instead, we’ll just say, “Let’s go Brandon.”

Speaking of out-of-touch buffoons, Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s labor secretary, took to the pages of the UK Guardian to wonder, “Why aren’t Americans happier about the economy?” Indeed, he marveled, “Why do so many Americans continue to think the economy is awful?”

It’s true that we should all count our blessings, but there’s a simple answer to Reich’s condescending question: We literally can’t afford Biden’s economy. As the RNC recently summarized, “Savings are down, real wages are down, and economic confidence is down.”

In fact, Reich answers his own question by directly rebutting Biden’s assertion that his plan is “working everywhere.” Reich says, “The rich get richer, the poor grow poorer, and the working middle is under worsening siege.”

Not to worry. Biden’s reelection theme is that he needs to “finish the job,” and he says Bidenomics is just the way to do it.

(Updated)