Amid a torrent of rumors surrounding the allegedly chaotic Trump transition, there have been some glimmers of hope emerging from the fledgling ascendance of the Manhattanite billionaire to the halls of power in Washington, DC. Vice President-elect, Mike Pence, has taken the reins of the transition process and his first order of business was to fire all lobbyists from the team, a promising sign that Trump plans to make good on his campaign pledge to “drain the swamp.” Coming on the heels of this welcome news is the report that the president-elect will order a ban on all lobbying activities for outgoing administration officials. And yet more happy news: James Clapper, head of the NSA, serial liar, and establishmentarian to boot, has resigned.
The swamp is draining itself.
As hopeful as all this appears, these optimistic developments are tempered by headlines pronouncing an energetic pessimism by those who refuse to find a silver lining in the outcome of our recent electoral contests.
In several major cities protests persist against the election of Trump, the shattered vestiges of the Democratic Party are in the nascent stages of an all-out war against the new epoch of Republican dominance, and college campuses have transformed (literally overnight) into nursery schools for young adults. Leftist internet activism is a raging storm of finger-pointing and prognostications of the coming end of the world due to the triumph of one Donald J. Trump.
As a friend of mine recently stated: “the hand-basket business is booming”.
If these predictions of purgatory hold true, there won’t be much left of our country — or the planet — when Mr. Trump’s first term comes to an end. This should seem to be the last remnants of good news for those on the left, as they can at least console themselves with the thought of easily regaining the White House in 2020.
Not so fast.
I’ve taken the time to read Trump’s plan for his first one hundred days in office and there’s a lot of good stuff in there: Renegotiating NAFTA, cancelling billions in payments to the United Nations’ climate change hoax agenda and redirecting the monies to repair our infrastructure, and lifting restrictions on domestic energy production, etc.
But the first bullet point in his plan to work with Congress stood out to me upon my initial reading of the Contract for the American Voter. It states:
- Middle-Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act.
An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.
Over the years, I’ve studied the history of fiscal policy in our country, particularly the history of taxation, and throughout the course of my research I’ve encountered a recurring phenomenon, one that President Kennedy once referred to as a paradox. When taxes are too high, government revenue decreases. When taxes are lowered, not only does the tax base grow and therefore revenues increase, but the result to the economy is nothing short of stunning.
When Warren Harding and his untimely successor Calvin Coolidge were confronted with a recession worse than that of 2008, they responded in the way that president-elect Trump seeks to respond to our current economic misfortune: They lowered taxes, they cut stifling regulations, and they allowed the economy to do what it does best when unfettered, that is, grow.
The pattern holds true from Harding/Coolidge to Kennedy, to Reagan, to Clinton, to Bush, and if history has informed us properly, it will hold true again under President Trump. Unbound by onerous taxation and the deleterious effects of over-regulation, our economy may not soar at 4% growth per year but soar it will.
And this is how the Democratic dream of retaking the White House in 2020 evaporates. The vast majority of the millennial generation has no memory of a thriving economy under Reagan and Clinton and all they remember of Bush is the catastrophe in Iraq and the Great Recession; their recollection of presidents doesn’t extend much further back than our current Celebrity-in-Chief. When they look around they see what they believe, based on their limited perspective, to be a good economy. That illusion will more likely than not be shattered once the engines of growth are allowed to roar under Trump.
When these kids see what a truly thriving economy looks like, they’ll never want to go back. The fat years of Obama will quickly become the lean years as they gain valuable perspective and, come November of 2020, they will vote with their wallets.
This spells doom for the Democrats.
For years, the left has regaled the nation with promises that if we continue to fork over more and more of our hard-earned dollars to a morbidly obese and perpetually expanding government, our lives will improve. $20 trillion in debt later and the promise has revealed itself for the lie it is. A falsehood repeated often enough will eventually be exposed and if Trump’s Contract for America fulfills only half its potential the lie may never again find footing among our nation’s voters. An entire generation could very well be lost to the left, a generation that enthusiastically launched the presidency of a man who promised hope and change but delivered instead stagnation poorly disguised as wealth.
This is Trump’s chance to put the lies of the liberal elite to rest, to prove yet again that it is we the people who are the true authors of prosperity when we are allowed the freedom to pursue our interests in the market place. It is a lesson we have learned and applied and lost time and again in our country’s past. We must not forget it again. What better time to write it in stone than now, at the dawn of the Trump Era?
My advice for Democrats: Pull all of your money out of hand-baskets.
