The May jobs report was published last week, and one thing is for certain: President Trump has brought confidence in the American economy to the highest it’s been in years.
Thanks to the president’s “America First” message, the economy is showing rapid gains. As more companies begin listening to President Trump’s call to hire more Americans, reject outsourcing, and bring jobs back home from overseas, private payrolls have risen by 253,000 — significantly more than was forecast. Applications for unemployment benefits are near their lowest level since 1973, while the unemployment rate just hit a 16-year low.
{mosads}Many left-leaning economists and cable news talking heads are flabbergasted over the persistent gains of the job market, but the American people are not surprised. Job growth is inevitable when you finally have a leader in Washington who makes the American economy a priority. Now, the president needs the backing of other Washington policymakers to fully implement his vision to “make the economy great again.”
The president needs the Republican-controlled Congress to support his historic tax reform proposal, which could bring the biggest tax cuts in American history. His plan will stimulate job and economic growth by putting more money in the hands of the people who’ve earned it, reducing the current seven tax brackets to three — 10 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent — all while chopping the corporate tax rate by 20 percent to bring high-paying jobs back to the United States.
Congress needs to make greater strides in bringing President Trump’s vision of real tax reform to a reality. It’s important that members do not dilute his vision by getting hung up on the necessity of revenue neutrality. As Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made clear, this tax cut does not need any pay-fors, as it will “pay for itself with growth and with … reduction of different deductions and closing loopholes.” And so, Congress doesn’t need to worry about shuffling money from one group of Americans to another in order to finance the bracket reductions.
Mnuchin is exactly right, and history is on his side. One of the biggest and boldest tax reductions in American history — the Mellon tax cuts of 1920s — brought taxes down for everyone, including the highest bracket from 60 to 25 percent. The result was anything but a revenue shortage or giveaway to the rich — revenue to the government actually increased by hundreds of millions, while gross national product expanded by nearly 5 percent and incentives to work and invest in America were instantly restored. The Kemp-Roth tax cuts of 1981 were also not revenue neutral and lead to massive economic growth. The same can happen again in 2017 if Congress listens to President Trump, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, and the rest of the administration.
President Trump will also be relying on the cooperation of decision-makers at the Federal Reserve. President Obama’s appointees at the Fed are perhaps the primary reason we still haven’t recovered the high-paying jobs lost during the Great Recession after the 2008 crisis. As President Trump pointed out on the campaign trail, by price-fixing the federal funds rate for political purposes, the liberal donors working at the Fed have kept the economy in a “big, fat economic bubble” — enriching the well-to-do while destroying the purchasing power of American families.
As bestselling author James Rickards — a financial expert who predicted the 2008 collapse of the economy — detailed, the Fed’s excessive meddling in the economy has even fueled the global currency war, destroying American jobs by incentivizing foreign countries to continue manipulating their currencies.
It’s time for the current board members at the Fed to help President Trump stop global currency manipulation, all while getting the American economy back on its feet. If the current board members remain uncooperative, their power over the economy will be curtailed soon, as the White House is in the process of quickly filling three vacancies at the central bank.
The fake news media that has opposed the president from Day 1 will deny all of this and try to distract Congress into inaction. Their commentary should be ignored. After all, these “experts” failed to forecast the 2008 recession. The May jobs report is evidence of the fact that President Trump is making the economy great again by creating jobs and lowering unemployment to a historic low. Now it’s time for Congress to push his agenda full speed ahead.
Corey R. Lewandowski served as campaign manager for President Donald J. Trump.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.