Trump Results v. the Mindless Resistance - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Trump Results v. the Mindless Resistance
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Michael Vadon/Creative Commons

Americans are enjoying an all-too-unusual combination of peace and prosperity. The probability that you will be killed or lose a loved one in a foreign war has dropped to nearly zero, while the chance that you or anyone you know will be involuntarily unemployed is lower than it has been in half a century. Moreover, real wages are increasing and inflation is negligible. Life isn’t problem-free, of course, but times are genuinely good. Much of the credit for this gratifying state of affairs is unquestionably owed to President Trump. Yet the Democrats assure us that he is a clear and present danger to the republic.

He is, they believe, such a menace to our sacred freedoms that the speaker of the House recently issued a press release declaring him too dangerous to leave in office long enough for the voters to decide his political fate. The next presidential election is only a year away, but Speaker Pelosi avers that allowing the democratic process to play out is a “weak response” to Trump’s crimes: “That dangerous position only adds to the urgency of our action, because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.” She is, however, oddly vague about the details of this alarming threat.

Madam Speaker says the president has abused his power and assures us that “The facts are uncontested.” This is nonsense, of course. Indeed, the most notable feature of the ill-conceived Democratic “impeachment inquiry” is its failure to produce any plausible evidence that he has committed an offense that would justify ousting him from office. There are, however, numerous uncontested facts suggesting that Trump is actually doing quite a good job as president. Thus, while the Democrats search for an impeachable offense to pin on him, let us consider a few of his accomplishments.

President Trump’s most conspicuous successes have involved the domestic economy, particularly the job market. Since his inauguration, more than six million jobs have been created, including nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report shows unemployment at only 3.6 percent, including the lowest Black unemployment rate in history. Hispanic unemployment also remains near its lowest rate ever. Democrats like Joe Biden insist that the middle class has been left out of the Trump economy. As Stephen Moore writes at the Wall Street Journal, this is fiction:

The latest data from the Census Bureau monthly surveys tell a different story. Real median household income — the amount earned by those in the very middle — hit $65,084 (in 2019 dollars) for the 12 months ending in July. That’s the highest level ever and a gain of $4,144, or 6.8%, since Mr. Trump took office. By comparison, during 7½ years under President Obama — starting from the end of the recession in June 2009 through January 2017 — the median household income rose by only about $1,000.

An important benefit of this record high in the median income and the reductions in unemployment over which Trump has presided is a reduction in the number of people who rely on food stamps. Since his inauguration, millions of Americans have been able to get off that program. Breitbart reports, “The most recent USDA data shows that 5,896,383 people discontinued their participation in the nation’s food stamp program … since February 2017 when Trump completed his first month as president.” This is good news for the erstwhile participants as well as the taxpayers.

Those taxpayer savings are, of course, dwarfed by the tax cuts all Americans received when Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) into law. Over 85 percent of American workers saw their paychecks increase as a result of that tax reform law. It also increased the standard deduction for individuals and families while doubling the child tax credit. This piece of legislation is responsible for much of the good economic news noted above. Inevitably, every single candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has pledged to repeal the TCJA. Americans for Tax Reform notes,

Americans for Tax Reform today released a video compilation of Democratic presidential candidates threatening to impose various taxes on Americans.

Democrats want to raise income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, and impose a carbon tax, gun tax, wealth tax, and even a robot tax. And the Dem threat to repeal the GOP-enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act means they would raise taxes on households in every income level in every congressional district.

Another of the president’s ongoing achievements that Democrats desperately want to halt involves the federal judiciary. He has appointed two Supreme Court justices and, as Mitch McConnell recently tweeted, “As of this afternoon, one in every four judges on the federal courts of appeals will have been nominated by @POTUS Trump and confirmed by us here in the Senate.” This is alarming for the Democrats. They can’t get their increasingly left-wing agenda through Congress, so they rely on activist judges to legislate from the bench. Trump is removing that crutch, as Reuters reveals:

Even as the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday heard crucial testimony from pivotal witness Gordon Sondland, the Senate voted to confirm Trump’s latest appointee to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a regional appeals court handling cases from Georgia, Alabama and Florida.…

This marks the third time that Trump has been able to engineer the ideological “flip” of one of the nation’s 13 federal appeals courts, which exert considerable power one level below the U.S. Supreme Court.

In health care, the president has helped free Americans from Obamacare by expanding short-term, limited-duration health plans and enabling small businesses to join “association health plans.” He has presided over the repeal of that misbegotten law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), whose sole purpose was the rationing of essential health care to the elderly, and worked with Congress to eliminate the “tax penalty” for failing to buy health insurance. He signed “Right-to-Try” legislation, and his administration has approved more generic drugs than any of its predecessors.

As to foreign policy, the president moved the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, pulled the U.S. out of the dangerous Iran deal, decreased the danger of terrorism by implementing the travel ban — after winning a Supreme Court battle — pulled out of the ridiculous Paris Climate Accords, concluded the USMCA Trade Agreement — on which the Democrats still refuse to act — imposed tariffs on China in response to forced technology transfer, reduced illegal immigration by implementing the “Remain in Mexico” program, kept the Guantanamo Bay detention facility open, ad infinitum.

All of the above, and much more, was accomplished even as President Trump was subjected to the absurd Mueller investigation and the even more asinine “impeachment inquiry.” Imagine what the president might have accomplished if the Democrats had accepted the will of the voters. And, make no mistake, that’s what “the resistance” is about. Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have refused to acquiesce in the peaceful and orderly transfer of power to the president chosen by the electorate. They have nothing to offer but impeachment. That makes them far more dangerous than Donald Trump.

David Catron
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David Catron is a recovering health care consultant and frequent contributor to The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter at @Catronicus.
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