“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” Donald Trump said on the campaign trail.
Americans, 408 days later, are still waiting. What’s worse, instead things are increasingly more expensive.
“From rising electric bills to wholesale natural gas prices surging 71% in 2025, it’s clear that Donald Trump’s cost-raising economic policies have been a total disaster for Pennsylvanians,” said DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta. “Donald Trump promised to lower costs on Day One. Instead, they’ve skyrocketed.”
Kenyatta pointed to Trump’s promise to lower energy costs as one glaring example. Trump claimed at a September 2024 ‘Protecting America Initiative’ roundtable in Pennsylvania that “your energy bill within 12 months will be cut in half, and that’s my pledge all over the country.”
Promise made, promise broken.
New data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that electricity costs have risen 14.4% in Pennsylvania. It didn’t help that there was a 71% increase in natural gas prices during Trump’s first year, so of course utility bills are soaring.
Over 13 months into his presidency, and empowered by a Republican Congress to rubber stamp his reckless economic policies, working families in Pennsylvania are left to helplessly watch life become more and more unaffordable as gas, health care, housing and grocery prices also continue to spike.
“That’s why Donald Trump owns this affordability crisis, and families across the Commonwealth are paying the price,” said Kenyatta, who also serves as a state representative in Harrisburg.
Indeed.
Across the board, life is more unaffordable for Pennsylvanians.
Take health care.
Because Trump and his Republican Congress let Affordable Care Act subsidies expire, Pennsylvanians who enroll in health insurance through the state’s official marketplace Pennie faced “an average price increase of 102% to remain in their plan for 2026.” Never mind the “nearly 1 in 5 enrollees were unable to keep their health plan for 2026.”
READ: I’m a Caregiver. It’s Time Rep. Mackenzie and Trump Start to Care About the American People
Then there’s Trump’s tariffs. The nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy projects that they will raise costs on the median Pennsylvania family by $1,183. More so, as PennLive reported, the Trump tariffs that the Supreme Court just overturned “cost Pennsylvanians $4 billion.”
Yes, $4 billion.
And PA-01 Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick thought it wise to vote to shield Trump’s future tariffs from Congressional oversight earlier this month. Luckily that measure failed because three Republicans dared to put their constituents economic well-being ahead of fealty Trump – unlike Fitzpatrick.
Have you been to the gas station lately to fill your tank? Prices are up nearly 7% in 2026. And now that Trump launched his reckless war in Iran, prices just spiked and likely will continue to climb at a faster clip, as The Associated Press reports.
Grocery bills are also more, not less expensive since Trump took office.
The Hill, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported at the end of January that “the overall cost of food at home has risen 2.4% over the past 12 months.” This includes the costs of coffee, seafood, meat and lettuce.
Finally, the Consumer Price Index for Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metro Area for housing rose 5.6% in Trump’s first year, according to the U.S. Bureau for Labor Statistics.
There is hope though, and it comes from House Speaker Mike Johnson of all places.
Looking ahead to November’s elections, Johnson said, “If we lost the midterms—heaven forbid, if we lost the majority in the House, it would be the end of the Trump presidency in a real effect.”
This underscores how important the race in Pennsylvania’s first congressional district is. It would help end this economic nightmare. Trump can not survive and continue his disastrous economic policies without Fitzpatrick being re-elected. If we listen to Johnson, the only way to change course is for voters to flip Congress – and locally that starts with Fitzpatrick’s seat.
READ: Affordability Is a Vanishing Promise for the Middle Class
“Donald Trump and Brian Fitzpatrick are running this economy into the ground, and working families in Bucks and Montco are left to pick up the pieces and pay the price,” said Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie, who is running in the Democratic congressional primary. “Fitzpatrick isn’t just making policy mistakes, [he] is betraying every family back at home who is stretching their paycheck further and further each month to fill up their tank, pay their electric bill, or buy groceries.”
Harvie is the frontrunner and was just endorsed by the Bucks County Democratic Committee. But he first needs to defeat his primary opponents Lucia Simonelli, Tracy Hunt, Rob Strickler, Tom Taft, and Mike Zeltakalns. The election is May 19.
Harvie has made revitalizing the “American Dream” central to his campaign. And part of that is putting working people ahead of the interests of billionaires, something he says Fitzpatrick fails to do – at best because he is too weak to stand up to Trump – or at worst because he doesn’t want to.
“Congress is supposed to be a check on Donald Trump’s recklessness, but Fitzpatrick keeps falling in line while gas prices surge, electricity bills explode, and hardworking people are forced to choose between keeping the lights on and putting food on the table,” said Harvie.
Ending the affordability crisis in Pennsylvania can’t happen without ending Fitzpatrick’s career in Congress. Donald Trump knows this. Speaker Johnson knows this. Even Fitzpatrick knows this.
We’ll have to wait until November to see if the voters do as well.
