In less than two months, Americans will choose a President for the next four years. If your vote is based on which candidate can rebuild our economy, the choice is clear: Donald J. Trump.
In fact, our economy is roaring back from the depths of the pandemic, because President Trump’s pro-growth economic agenda over the last four years laid the groundwork.
On September 4, the Department of Labor announced that 1.4 million jobs were created since April. The national unemployment rate fell to 8.4 percent, a 6.3 percent improvement during that period. These results exceeded the expectations of economists and even the most bullish Wall Street analysts. Reflecting confidence in the economy’s recovery, the stock markets have traded at record highs since the nationwide economic closures that began in March.
Under the leadership of President Trump, the Republican Senate and then Republican-controlled House passed the most comprehensive tax cuts and tax reform legislation in a generation. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced taxes for businesses from 35 percent to 21 percent.
It also provided valuable incentives for manufacturers and small businesses – including restaurants – to hire more employees and allowed business owners to write off any investment in new equipment and tools for their businesses.
One of the President’s earliest directives was to mandate that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. In Trumpian style, the President’s team actually exceeded his own initial directive and eliminated 22 regulations for every new regulation issued.
According to the Council of Economic Advisors, Trump deregulation has reduced regulatory burden on our economy by nearly $50 billion and helped American families save at least $3,100 each year.
Since the pandemic struck, the president’s economic leadership has also been bold and decisive. For example, in May, the President signed an Executive Order on Regulatory Relief to Support Economic Recovery that directed Cabinet and agency heads to use, to the fullest extent possible, any emergency authorities available to support the economic response to the virus.
In August, the Environmental Protection Agency exercised such emergency authority to allow airlines to utilize an innovative and proven product to clean commercial airliners between flights, giving added confidence for the American people to safely travel.
Another Trump post-pandemic economic effort is The Pledge to America’s Workers and the White House Initiative on Industries of the Future. Both are spearheaded by Ivanka Trump and centered on jumpstarting high-tech job training and bolstering American dominance in transformational industries such as 5G wireless broadband, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence.
These are the sectors that will determine long-term American leadership of the global economy.
But as our nation continues the transition from pandemic to sustained economic recovery, the contrast between President Trump’s optimistic and pro-worker jobs agenda and former Vice President Biden’s embrace of indefinite quarantine and economic closure is clear.
During the Democratic presidential primary, Vice President Biden, who was trailing in enthusiasm among Democratic activists, raced to embrace the Green New Deal championed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Included in the Green New Deal, is a fracking ban, that would eliminate hundreds of thousands of energy, manufacturing, and construction jobs in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Vice President Biden won’t even renounce the Green New Deal’s mandate to eliminate U.S. commercial airlines within a decade.
This would further devastate already suffering high-skilled union jobs in the aviation, aerospace manufacturing, and hospitality sectors in states such as Florida and Nevada. According to recent studies, the demise of American aviation alone would cost us 1.6 million jobs and a one percent decline in our gross domestic product (GDP).
Perhaps most troubling, Vice President Biden has alluded to the cynicism of his campaign strategy to conceal his transition team’s plans to reimpose regulations and increase taxes. Referring to the economic platform adopted by Democrats, Biden conceded, “I’m not gonna lay it out for you. I won’t now because they’ll shoot me.” I couldn’t agree more.
At the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. Progressives and media naysayers scoffed at the Trump Administration’s vision for economic growth during the darkest days of the pandemic. Despite the doomsday projections of sustained economic depression, President Trump’s economic platform of tax cuts, deregulation, and limited government have been rocket fuel for America’s coronavirus recovery.
On the flip side, a vote for the former Vice President would undermine our economy and put American workers back on the ropes.
Therefore, I urge my fellow Americans to give President Trump, a successful businessman, four more years to continue his leadership and sustain our economic recovery.
