Now that President Joe Biden has formally announced that he will run for re-election in 2024, Americans need to ask themselves two vital questions.

First: Can the country afford another four years of Biden's policies?

And, second: Are you better off today than you were before Biden moved in to the White House?

With regard to the first question, I would venture to say that most Americans, if they are being completely candid, would respond with an emphatic "no."

Why do I believe this?  Because I have common sense and can perform arithmetic.

On January 20, 2021, the day Biden took the oath of office, the U.S. national debt was $27.7 trillion.  Today, it stands at $31.7 trillion.

Over the past two years, Biden has signed the $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan, $1.1-trillion Infrastructure law, and $370-billion Inflation Reduction Act, among many more mega-spending bills.

As the Heritage Foundation reports, "deficits through fiscal year 2031 are on pace to total a staggering $6 trillion more than when the Biden administration began, or about $46,000 for every household in the country."

Despite this, Biden had the audacity to gaslight the entire nation when he stated, "In the last two years, my administration has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion — the largest deficit reduction in American history" during his 2023 State of the Union address.  That is simply not true, as the receipts prove.

The United States also cannot afford four more years of a wide-open southern border, which has created a humanitarian crisis, further fueled the fentanyl epidemic, and empowered Mexican drug cartels under Biden's watch.

Moreover, we cannot endure four more years of racial division; Critical Race Theory in our education system; Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity initiatives in our workplaces; Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores distorting our economy and financial institutions; transgender activism overtaking our youth; crime and looting running rampant in our cities; green energy boondoggles undermining our power grid; and all the other misguided policies that Biden has either implicitly or explicitly endorsed.

As for the second question, I think it is more than safe to say that most Americans would also respond with a resounding "no."

For starters, Biden's reckless spending has unleashed massive inflation, which is cruelly destroying the once-vaunted American dream.  As many polls show, nearly six in 10 Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, with the overwhelming majority citing inflation as the primary reason for their money troubles.

What's more, under the Biden administration, income inequality has increased, prices at the pump have skyrocketed, prices at the grocery store are through the roof, and outstanding credit card debt now exceeds $1 trillion.

In other words, on almost every economic benchmark, Americans are worse off today than they were before Biden entered the Oval Office.

Yet the acute and chronic pain Americans are feeling seems to be lost on President Biden, who, we were told, was the embodiment of empathy.

The sad truth is that President Biden has been an utter failure across the board.  His foreign policy misadventures and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan have emboldened our enemies abroad.  His foolish economic agenda is making Americans poorer while putting King Dollar in peril as the world's reserve currency.  His social policies are breeding turmoil in the streets.  And his weaponization of the federal government against his political enemies is a direct threat to freedom and the principles that undergird our constitutional republic.

We now know that Biden will indeed run for re-election in 2024.  But his pitiful track record and laundry list of failures demonstrate that he does not deserve a second term.

Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.

Image: Waferboard.