The first anniversary of the Trump Era finds Americans great again
Are you better off now than you were one year ago?
From the Potomac to Puget Sound, President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans should ask voters this exact question. Their answers should buoy GOP prospects for the November 6 midterm elections.
Saturday marks one year since President Trump’s inauguration. Starting January 20, 2017, Trump and the GOP Congress have mopped up much of the previous management’s mess. Obama’s hectoring, anti-business tone has been hushed. His class warfare, “global warming” fetish, and lead-from-behindism are neutralized. Some 1,500 absurd and intrusive regulations, many of them Obama’s brainchildren, have been junked. And Obama’s taxaholism has been replaced with the deepest tax cuts since 1981.
These Trump/GOP reforms have over-delivered on all expectations. As President Trump told factory workers Thursday at H&K Equipment in Coraopolis, Pa.: “The good news keeps pouring in.”
‐Since President Trump replaced Obama, GDP growth has climbed from 2.1 percent to 3.2 percent, a 52 percent acceleration in output.
‐The Dow Jones Industrial Average has soared from 19,827 to 26,071 as of Friday’s close, up 31.5 percent. This is the Big Board’s best first-year performance for a president since FDR. This is splendid news for the 54 percent of Americans who own stocks, including everyone with a retirement account.
‐The number of Americans employed has increased by 1.8 million, up 1.2 percent.
‐Unemployment has fallen from 4.7 percent to 4.1 percent, down 13 percent — the lowest rate since 2001.
‐Black unemployment has slid from 7.9 percent to 6.8 percent, down 14 percent — the lowest rate of black joblessness ever recorded.
‐The Labor Department announced on Thursday that 220,000 Americans sought first-time unemployment relief last week, the lowest such figure in almost 45 years.
‐The home-ownership rate has risen from 63.7 percent to 63.9 percent.
‐The Consumer Confidence Index has advanced from 113.7 to 122.1, up 7.4 percent.
Unlike the triumphant Republicans, Democrats achieved nothing last year. They are visionless and idea-free, other than to “Resist!” Trump.
Meanwhile, the Left’s serial anti-Trump narratives have imploded, one after another:
‐Trump is a Kremlin puppet! After digging for 18 months, the FBI and, later, special counsel Robert Mueller have unearthed zero evidence that Trump colluded with Moscow to win the White House. Meanwhile, Trump has yanked Vladimir Putin’s chain far more than Putin has pulled Trump’s strings. Sending offensive weapons to Ukraine, which might aim them at Russian troops, is hardly the behavior of Moscow’s marionette.
‐Trump’s tax cut won’t help the middle class!
Each and every congressional Democrat battled the tax cut that has unleashed rampant economic growth.
“Let them eat crumbs!” cried Maria Antoinette Pelosi. As tax-cut-fueled bonuses erupted within days of the federal corporate-tax rate’s plunge from 35 percent to 21 percent, the House Democrat leader mocked “the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on.” She added: “It is insignificant.”
Crumbs, perhaps, if, like Nancy Pelosi, you enjoy a Napa Valley vineyard, six other properties, and a net worth of $29.35 million, according to Roll Call.
Meanwhile, since the Trump/GOP tax cut kicked in, Americans for Tax Reform calculates that at least 200 companies have reported paying their workers bonuses of up to $3,000, boosting their pension deposits, and hiking base hourly wages up to and beyond $15. Some 2.2 million employees are savoring these $1 billion–plus in benefits, as surely are many others at companies that have not publicized such payments.
“Over time, we expected employment and take-home pay to increase nationally,” said ATR president Grover Norquist, “but this response is stronger and faster and more widespread than anyone I spoke to expected.”
CNBC’s Jake Novak observed Thursday: “Apple’s blockbuster announcement that it will repatriate almost all of its $250 billion in overseas cash, create 20,000 new U.S. jobs, open a new U.S. campus, and add $350 billion to the U.S. economy ends any serious debate about the new tax reform law.”
‐Trump is a racist! His alleged “sh**hole countries” remark about El Salvador, Haiti, and certain African states — reported by Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) — now is disputed by GOP senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the latter under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. They all say that they did not hear Trump make that comment at a White House immigration meeting last week.
Moreover, the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave the University of Utah’s Moran Eye Center $10,000 to support Senator Rand Paul, M.D.’s free cataract surgeries for poor Guatemalans in 2014. Private citizen Trump donated another $10,000 for the Kentucky Republican ophthalmologist’s similar mercy mission to treat some 200 visually impaired Haitians in 2015.
Democrat Andrew Stein, former New York City Council president, has known Trump since 1973. “This guy doesn’t have an ounce of racism in him. He judges people on the merits,” Stein told Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham on Tuesday.
Stein gathered medical supplies after a 1980 storm slammed Haiti, but he needed a plane to deliver the aid. “I called Donald Trump,” Stein said. “One-two-three, he gave us a plane to take all the supplies over.”
Stein remembered about Trump, “On the first night he took over Mar-a-Lago, I think it was’85, he said to me, ‘It’s crazy that they don’t admit blacks in any of the fancy clubs in Palm Beach, and I’m going to change that.’” Trump’s lawsuit integrated those establishments.
Stein recalled that a church in Queens sought funds for its poorest, largely black congregants. “I called a lot of liberal friends in Manhattan. They couldn’t care less,” Stein said. “I called Donald Trump, and right away he wrote a check.”
What a racist.
‐Trump is mentally ill! Tuesday’s marathon press conference by nonpartisan White House physician Ronny Jackson, M.D., defanged Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff’s much-echoed claim that Trump is one Twitter storm away from being wheeled off in a straitjacket. On Trump’s insistence, Dr. Jackson administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Trump scored a perfect 30 out of 30.
“The president is mentally very, very sharp; very intact,” said Jackson, a U.S. Navy rear admiral. The doctor, who also treated presidents Obama and George W. Bush, dismissed accusations of Trump’s instability (by those who have not examined him) as “tabloid psychiatry.”
‐The cheeseburger-chomping Trump is too sick to lead!
Jackson said Trump needs to lose 10 to 15 pounds. Nonetheless, “the President’s overall health is excellent.” His blood pressure is 122/74, and “he’s fit for duty,” Jackson concluded. “I think he will remain fit for duty for the remainder of this term and even for the remainder of another term, if he’s elected.”
One year into the Trump/GOP Era, everyday Americans are better off than they were when Obama left town. Washington Democrats? Not so much.