Here’s my wish list for the incoming Trump administration to make America healthy and prosperous and great again in 2025.
1. Slash Job-Killing Regulations
The regulatory state is a $2 trillion tax on the American economy. We all want worker safety, a clean environment and consumer protections, but in too many cases the costs of regulations far outweigh the societal benefits. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to slash 10 rules for every new rule. Just do it, Mr. President.
2. Make the Trump Tax Cuts Permanent
As JFK, Ronald Reagan and others have proven throughout history, lower tax rates lead to more growth, more investment and more jobs. The Trump tax cuts meant that a typical family of four earning $75,000 a year saw their tax bill fall by half – a benefit valued at more than $2,000. And the corporate tax rate fell from 35% – the highest in the world – to 21%, bringing jobs and capital to America. Trump has promised to make all these tax cuts permanent. Why? Because they worked almost exactly as we anticipated they would.
3. Replace Welfare With Work
Growth will require more able-bodied Americans getting off welfare and into jobs. Welfare – which includes cash assistance, public housing, food stamps, disability payments, unemployment benefits and Medicaid – needs to be a hand up, not a handout.
4. Use America’s Abundant Natural Resources
America has well more than $50 trillion of natural resources that are accessible with existing drilling and mining technologies. This is a vast storehouse of wealth that far surpasses what any other nation is endowed with. We can use the royalty payments and leases to reduce our national debt while creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
5. Cut Medical Costs by Demanding Health Care Price Transparency
One of many ways to bring health care costs down to consumers (and taxpayers, who pay half the costs) is to require hospitals, pharmacies, doctors and health clinics to list prices for what they are charging. The Committee to Unleash Prosperity estimates that $1 trillion to $2 trillion could be reduced from health care costs, with no reduction in the quality of care, by allowing consumers to shop around on the internet for the best price – just as we do when we buy groceries, a home or a car. This will foster free market competition and lower prices.
6. Allow School Choice for All Families
Test scores in America have been plummeting. Kids are graduating from high school – if at all – without even being able to read the diploma. America no longer ranks in the top 10 in many academic achievement ratings.
A child can get a better education at HALF the cost in the Catholic school system and in many charters.
Trump has endorsed universal school choice for ALL children regardless of income or ethnicity or race. This is the civil rights issue of our time.
7. Implement a Pro-America Immigration Policy
Trump’s committed to securing our border, but we also need legal immigrants through a merit-based immigration system. This visa system would select immigrants based on their skills, talents, investment capital, English language ability and education level. These characteristics all presage success in America.
8. Revive America’s Great Cities
Our once-great cities in America – from New York to Chicago to Detroit to San Francisco to Seattle – have come to look like war zones. Crime has run rampant. Businesses and people and capital are fleeing and leaving the poorest Americans – mostly minorities – stranded with tragically limited opportunities other than working at Walmart or McDonald’s for minimum wage. Since 2020, our major cities have lost nearly 1 million residents. And tens of thousands of businesses.
Trump wants to revitalize our cities and abandoned rural areas through deregulation, reduction in tax rates, changes in zoning policies and infrastructure investments.
9. Pull the U.S. Out of the Paris Climate Change Treaty and Other Anti-America Agreements
We must end American participation in globalist treaties that hurt America most. This includes the Paris Climate Accords – a treaty with which most other nations have failed to comply, yet which places huge burdens on American companies and workers. Trump also has pledged to end global taxation – such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s global minimum tax. Do we even need a United Nations?
10. Finally, Drain the Swamp
There is a reason why three of the five wealthiest counties in America are in or around Washington, D.C. Washington is getting rich at the expense of the rest of us. Fewer than 10% of overpaid federal workers (of which there are more than 2 million) are working full-time in the office even though COVID-19 ended three years ago. These are swamp employees that often get paid $150,000 or more a year. Fire them if they don’t show up. And relocate federal agencies in other cities.
These are admittedly bold aspirations for an economic transformation toward freedom and free enterprise. But the one person who can get it done is Trump.
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is also an economic advisor to the Trump campaign. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
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Interesting ideas that would help this nation to recover. Now, if only the Left/Demos would agree but that is not their agenda as they want a One World Government where the Elite call all of the shots for the world. Their judgement is coming soon.
A solid yes to #9. Stop foreign aid to countries that openly hate us but sure love our money. End all funding to Ukraine including military equipment. There is a reason Russia invaded Ukraine and it is not territorial. Would like DOGE to dig into how much of the billions of dollars given to Zelensky ricocheted back to Bidumb and his corrupt family.
The “climate” hoax should have been laughed out of existence before it ever hot started. It’s a globalist power-grab and elitest fleece-the-masses-until-they-bleed scheme.
You missed the big one: America MUST bear the pain of paying off the national debt. Millions will suffer, but that’s the price that must be paid for electing politicians that had/have no fiscal responsibility…
The cities will NEVER be fuxed as long as they are run by the traitorous, corrupt, perverse, criminal Marxist Rat Party.
10x yes to all these ideas. Now revitalizing the cities is the biggest challenge, because the Dems have put a lock on all of them by their local organizing. Look at the Trump/Kommie election map. Where’s the blue? Almost every city is solid blue, except places like Ft. Worth and cities in Utah and the midwest. So let’s come up with a plan to take back the cities.
The enormous response from Republicans in November beat the corrupt voting machine that the dems have mastered. To all those who think their votes don’t count, I’ve heard about some races that were decided by a mere few hundred or thousand votes.
President Trump will prove once again that his initiatives will bring prosperity like we’ve never seen before. Some of the revenues paid to the Treasury should be dedicated to debt reduction. Even though the subject is taboo, we also need to look at entitlements to secure them for generations to come. Raising the age of eligibility by a few months each year for several years can help, as would lifting the income cap. If we don’t start paying down the debt, the Doubters will question whether all those promises are worth the paper they’re written on.
Happy, Happy New Year!
How about decentralizing the federal government? You want to work in the agriculture department— you’ll be moving to Nebraska or Iowa where the agriculture is. Transportation (road building and maintenance) could be pretty much anywhere, why is it located on the very edge of America in Washington DC? Don’t want to come to your office? YOU’RE FIRED! Empty office buildings? Sell them or turn them into affordable housing for people who actually keep DC running, like trash truck drivers, waiters, street cleaners, teachers, road maintenance people. How ‘bout we just get rid of the thousands of duplicate agencies that spend time shuffling money toward and away from each other.and just get the money back to the people it was stolen from?
Personally I feel that #10 should be higher on the list. The only way there even is a future in America, is if we put the old career politicians to bed. Safe and sound, and out of their thieving ‘look out for number 1 .. ME’ attitudes. We need fresh Americans, with pride to want to serve in the greatest country on the planet. Who would likely do it for a pay match to what they are making now … just for the opportunity to serve. Career politicians need to be GONE. TERM LIMITS ARE VITAL.
Best way to facilitate all of it: eliminate the 16th amendment, the income tax, and the IRS and switch the federal government’s source of revenue 100% from income tax to tariffs on foreign goods like it used to be. Then eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank, the IMF, and the World Bank, and you’d be surprised how little boom and bust there will be henceforth. All of a sudden the federal government will become downright affordable, when it can no longer just print paper money whenever they want to pilfer your, your kids’, your grandkids’, and their kids’ pockets via inflation through monetizing their “deficit spending” by diluting the value of your hard earned money. It will probably discourage 75% of “Democrats” from going into politics at all when the green is drained from the Washington, D.C. swamp, and there will be greener bogs to prowl in for the grifter con artist reptiles than a well policed, audited, investigated, and punished when their books are cooked federal government whether on the politician, or civil service side. Let’s hope the team of Musk/Ramaswamy will make swamp gator boots, and bog snake belts all the rage in our country because the Swamp is full of crocodiles, and snakes.
In Texas we have been trying to get school choice. We continue to have Dems in Republican clothing in charge of our legislature. Pretend to be Republicans to get elected and then…. Our legislative session begins in January- can we achieve success? Dems pledge to block.
Amen to all the above! Seek stronger National Security
It’s hard to argue with the concepts that Mr. Moore presents, though, I feel that some are more expediently “doable” than others.
One thing is certain, however, and that is the loss of wealth and opportunity that has been forced upon Americans by “democrat” polititians, through a wide range of schemes by which these self-serving, self-perpetuating, non-public-servants end up “buying” their votes with the promise of gifting taxpayer dollars to “their” voters. This is neither public service nor “democratic” governance. As Mr. Moore’s example in this article represents, this is thievery that must be stopped.
Good luck getting any of it implemented seeing as there’s a certain political party in the US who, every time they have both opportunity and the power, accomplish the exact opposite of anything “America first”!
add:
Enterprise Zones
Innovation Centers
CUT regulations, taxes MORE
CUT DC bureaucracy X7000
Expand DOGE
I’d make one change. Drain the swamp should be top and center. All the rest is temporary unless that happens.
I would love to see the Northwestern part of Illinois get revitalized. There are plenty of places there that are in need of a reason for young people to stay there. Plenty of small towns where the major business is agriculture. But businesses seem to treat the area like it doesn’t exist. I don’t understand why.
Thank you, Mr. Moore, for a very well written article, and all 10 amazingly great ideas. I tend to agree with all 10 ideas you chose. They would certainly be a great start for fixing America and putting America on the right road for the future.
Sounds like a plan.
It needs to be done under Trump or any other person, I am still afraid they will kill him before Jan 20-2025. Like Biden, for example, should have done this for America. But he was too busy destroying America. Supporting foreign countries. The country overrun by criminals and gold seekers. Not contributing a thing to America but bleeding her dry. Criminal elements can do what they want but a law abiding citizen, a patriot say, is hated by the Biden administration. He has more love for school shooters than the victims. Commuting their sentence is a slap in the face of all these families who have suffered at the hands of these criminals. But did we expect anything else from Biden? He let the families wait for more than an hour when their children who were killed in Afghanistan were returned to America. Biden was taking a nap on his plane. Sleeping with not a care in the world about the 13 soldiers that were killed. Trump should have no problem correcting all these disasters immediately. Any opposition by the dems, we the people, will oppose and let our voices be heard. No more hiding from the dems threats. Common sense has been returned to America. And the communists have been fired on November 5th 2024 overwhelmingly. They lost the power over the people, their destruction of America has been stopped. We will flourish and become a country with prestige and admiration in the world.
Perfect, but one more! Make Media Companies reapply for a License (TV, Radio, Social…etc.)!
Good suggestions all – and a nice starting point.
One more thing. President Trump should push Congress to enact line-item veto power to the president. No more padding popular bills with hidden pork! Congress will never do this without President Trump and DOGE making it a public issue.
These are all good ideas as a start to the recovery of our nation, but it is going to take more than the next four years to fix all the decadence of the last four years. It is easier to cause destruction than it is to build back to our former glory. The Dems, even now, are conspiring to try and remove Trump as the next president and are trying to secure enough votes to facilitate this action. At this time they may not be able to pass legislation to make D.C. a state for more Supreme Court judges for leftist control, possibly gave up on Puerto Rico Statehood for more judges, increasing the limited number. We also need to re-fund the police, as i receive frequent request from various law enforcement agencies to cover cost of vests primarily, and other equipment, although i strongly question several shootings resulting in innocent deaths. This must stop, back to protect and serve. More of mental health assets sent before police when situation known, being instituted with good results stopping some of the chaos on 911 calls. I do believe in and hope for a reversal in the deterioration all aspects of our lives, but it will be an up-hill battle with the naysayers, detrimental to our moving forward to our just cause.
January 20th is to be a day of reckoning. I hear that the Presidential Executive Orders are already written and waiting for the inauguration and the President’s signature.
All of Biden’s destruction can be undone and sanity can be returned. I will cheer as each one is signed. It’s about time!
We already have No. 6–school choice. You could and can send your children to a school of your choice. But of course, parents typically want “free choice” and have someone else pay for it. That someone is, of course, the govt packing around my taxpayer dollars. The kicker is that the supreme court has ruled the govt must supervise (control) that what taxpayer dollars it has doled out. I agree, let’s cut down on corruption. You see, if we are going to escape govt control of education, the govt wants to control where else we go also. And it will do so by controlling the dollars which will then control the curriculum. Yes, I know, many can’t afford it when they have acquired a lifestyle wherein the cost of prep school hasn’t been in their budget. So you have to sacrifice for your children. I had to pull overtime, produce a large garden, go into beekeeping, cut and sell firewood on weekends to keep my children and most grandchildren out of Uncle Sam’s grasp. Other Christians and conservatives can do it also. Decide what you value most.
“5. Cut Medical Costs By Demanding Health Care Price Transparency” Sorry. I’ve been a healthcare provider for over 40 years. The problem is not a lack of transparency. The problem is that we now have a system driven by for-profit industries (Pharma and Health Insurance) whose interests ARE NOT healthier patients aided by medical care establishments supporting exceptional and effective doctor-patient relationships at an affordable cost.
All of the suggestions are superb! If President Trump can get 7 out of the 10 done, he will have done the impossible. Our biggest threat is #10. The swamp is the source of most of our country’s problems.
agree?
Excellent ideas. Let’s make it happen!
Hear, hear! All good.
Implement a flat tax base, and eliminate 90% of the IRS workers. Raise the FICA payments limit to the first $500,000 but keep benefits capped at $125,000 limit.
GET USA BACK ON THE GOLD STANDARD! GET THE US OUT OF THE UN & GET THE UN OUT OF THE US! SELL THE UN BUILDING! ABOLISH THE INCOME TAX, THE IRS & THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD! INSIST THAT CONGRESS FIX OUR MONETARY VALUE! Whew.
Instead of just making President Trump’s tax cuts permanent, how about eliminating the horrible income tax completely? Let’s end the politician-encouraged myth of “business taxes”. All business taxes are actually paid by individuals, mostly the middle class. The three sources of funds businesses must use to pay those “business taxes” are lower salaries for employees, higher prices for consumers, and lower returns on investments. Only people pay taxes. Let’s end the requirement for the Federal government to have our personal financial information and for us to file income tax reports annually. Let’s control how much and when we pay taxes by when and how much we consume. Let’s pass the Fair Tax and make our Federal tax system reasonable.
Great ideas, but none of them are really new 😉