As President Donald Trump met with the entire Cabinet this week, he bragged about the signature legislation of his second administration: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Except he didn’t refer to the OBBBA by its legislative name.
“Thanks to our Republican majorities in Congress, we passed the largest tax cuts in American history,” Trump said. “All Democrats voted against the tax cuts, putting more money in Americans’ pockets this year, the typical family got tax refunds of nearly almost close to $5,000.”
Instead, members of the Cabinet referred to the bill as the Working Family Tax Cuts, a clear indication that the administration is tacitly working to convince the public that the White House is attempting to alleviate financial struggles and improve the economy.
Polling, however, shows that the public is not quite convinced.
A recent Politico poll showed that 53% of Americans said the cost of living is the worst they can remember, 58% said Trump has not done enough to protect the nation against the costs of the Iran war, and 79% said food or medicine, and drug prices have increased since Trump took office.
Another UnidosUS poll showed that 66% of Latino voters said Trump and congressional Republicans are simply not focused on fixing the economy, 67% of Latino voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance, and 1-in-4 Latino voters who voted for Trump in 2024 said that if they could do it over again, they would not vote for him.
Trump risks repeating the same mistake that doomed former President Joe Biden’s administration, ignoring the anger over rising grocery and gas prices, ahead of the midterm elections, said one Republican. Biden routinely dismissed voters’ concerns about the state of the economy.
“There is a real risk of repeating Biden’s mistake,” said Dennis Lennox, a GOP strategist. “Politicians love to cite data, but voters judge the economy through their personal finances. When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Voters know whether the economy is good or bad every time they pay a bill, buy groceries, deposit a paycheck, or look at their bank balance.”
Yet, the White House is insistent that Trump is working to help families keep more of their money.
White House spokesman Kush Desai said, “President Trump was resoundingly re-elected precisely because he understood how Americans were left behind under Joe Biden, and the Trump administration has been focused on delivering economic relief for the American people since Day One.
“Over the last few months alone, the Trump administration has added hundreds of discounted drug offerings onto TrumpRx.gov, signed an executive order to lower home construction costs, and slashed costly Biden-era ESG regulations on grocery stores,” Desai wrote in a statement.
Here are some of the policies they are pushing.
Trump Accounts app
The administration is heavily pushing the officially rolled-out Trump Accounts app, which will allow parents access to the accounts after it launches on July 4.
“Trump Accounts, I believe, are the most important benefit for young people since the GI Bill,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said while holding a press briefing on Thursday. “It will place the American dreams into the palms of the hands of parents and children. Nearly 6 million kids have been signed up for Trump Accounts, and they will launch on July 4, and it will be a great symbol of the 250th anniversary.”
The “Trump Accounts,” originally titled “Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement,” were included in the OBBBA that passed over the summer as part of the Trump administration’s pro-family efforts.
The accounts are available to any child under the age of 18 who has a Social Security number and is a U.S. citizen. Every child born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, who has a Social Security number and is a U.S. citizen, is eligible for a $1,000 one-time contribution into a tax-deferred, low-cost index fund account that will then track the overall stock market.
Touting the user-friendly app Friday, Vice President JD Vance wrote on X: “With the Trump Accounts we’ve met people where they are. Instead of expecting them to navigate a ton of complicated forms … we’ve built out a simple, easy-to-use app to sign parents up.”
Jill Homan, economy and trade deputy director at the America First Policy Institute, praised the Trump administration’s creativity in encouraging families to invest in the stock market through the Trump Accounts.
“This will enable more Americans to participate in the ownership of America,” Homan said.
Homan also pointed to the trade deals that the administration is brokering, including the renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as another example of creating job opportunities for families in the U.S. who are further included in the American dream.
“These companies are expanding because of these trade deals,” Homan said. “And they’re incentivized to invest in their business because of these great upfront expensing, and so now they need more workers, and so now they’re hiring moms and dads to work in these facilities. So you have the moms making the chip, with the Trump Account, you have the kids owning the chip company. … They’re all benefiting through these policies, and by having ownership in the American dream.”
Housing legislation
The House passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act last week, following the Senate’s approval of the bill two months earlier. But the two bills must be reconciled before Trump can sign the legislation into law. The bill incentivizes more homebuilding by limiting institutional investor purchases of single-family homes.
The two chambers were at odds over certain provisions in the bill, including a ban on institutional investors, such as Blackstone, from purchasing single-family homes. Congress returns from recess in June, when lawmakers can continue hashing out details, but the Senate will also have to contend with passing a second reconciliation bill.
The White House previously told the Washington Examiner that it “strongly supports passage of this bill” and urged the two chambers to “resolve any remaining differences expeditiously.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts also pressured Congress to follow Trump’s lead in reforming legislation that is preventing new home construction in a recent memo. “Federal regulations should not stand in the way of new home building—nor should Washington subsidize state and local governments’ regulatory obstruction,” Roberts wrote.
Getting oil prices down
The administration has repeatedly stressed that oil prices are coming down, which will help lower prices at gas stations nationwide.
At the Wednesday Cabinet meeting, Trump said the United States was in fact producing enough oil that Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz was irrelevant. “We’re producing right now more oil by double than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined,” Trump said. “It’s never been anything like that … we don’t need oil, we don’t need the strait, we don’t need anything.”
The Treasury Secretary echoed those comments the next day before reporters.
“I believe we’ve already seen oil prices come down substantially,” Bessent said. “We are pumping more oil than we’ve ever seen before. And as I said, these are short-term challenges that we will get over, and I think we’ll move forward.”
As of Friday, the national average for gas prices was $4.391, down 16 cents from the previous week but still higher than a month ago and more than a dollar higher compared to a year ago, according to AAA. The price of oil has dropped over the past month. International benchmark Brent crude August futures fell from a high of $107.21 per barrel earlier this month to $92.24 as of Friday, although it is still $30 higher than a year ago.
Trump also previously pushed Congress to temporarily suspend the federal gas tax, which would lower the cost of a gallon of gas by 18 cents. Suspending the gas tax would require congressional approval. Although some Republicans have introduced legislation, it remains unclear whether it would come up for a vote in either chamber.
One Republican close to the White House, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, implored the White House to be more defensive on gas prices.
“The other thing is that they need to be touting more about how the stock market is doing well, economic growth is doing well, wage growth is doing well, list off the achievements,” the Republican said. “And do it with great repetition, because outside of Bessent, other economic players, and the president, you’re not hearing it as much from other Republicans who are not associated with the administration.”
They also urged more attacks against Democrats. “What they should be saying is, when it comes to gas prices, the Democrats have no solutions,” the Republican said. “They spent the last 15 years trying to eliminate fossil fuel … so putting them back into power is not going to lower gas prices, it’s only going to drive it up further.”
Lowering drug prices
Trump has repeatedly chastised the media for not adequately reporting on his efforts to lower prescription drug prices.
“We’re delivering record-setting discounts on prescription drugs with price differences of 400, 500, and even 600% at the TrumpRX.gov,” Trump said at the Cabinet meeting. “We recently added nearly 1,000 low-class, low-cost generics to the website.”
Last week, the administration announced it was partnering with billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, Amazon Pharmacy, and GoodRx to add generic medications to the TrumpRX website, a direct-to-consumer link.
Trump has pushed the Most Favored Nation policy, which caps the prices Medicare and Medicaid pay for certain brand-name drugs, since the start of his second administration. The administration has also negotiated more than a dozen deals with pharmaceutical companies to lower costs, which it is hoping will convince voters that the GOP should remain in control of Congress.
“As these policies along with the Working Families Tax Cuts and other actions continue taking effect, and as temporary disruptions from Operation Epic Fury dissipate, Americans can count on a repeat of the first Trump term’s historic economy,” Desai said.
