Community Magazine January 2019

78 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE DAVE GORDON T he ultimate outsider, Trump took the political scene by a storm when he announced his candidacy for the Republican Presidential Primary in June, 2015. Dismissed as a dark house candidate by virtually all pundits, Trump shocked the world by scoring an electoral victory in the November, 2016 election, becoming the first President in recent history without any previous political experience. Trump’s inexperience, coupled with his unconventional – to put it very, very mildly – style, led many to wonder what his Presidency what would look like, and what the country would look like under his stewardship. Halfway into his term, we can look back and assess the President’s accomplishments since his inauguration in 2017, to see which hopes and fears proved correct, and which didn’t. Trump suffered a loss in November’s midterm elections, which tilted the House to the Democrats, giving them a slight majority, though the vote fell far short of the drubbing most pundits believed President Trump would suffer entering his second year of office. Additionally, midterm losses for the incumbent President’s party are typical, even expected. For example, Presidents Clinton and Obama both lost significantly more seats than Trump in their respective midterm elections. Moreover, even if the midterms technically belong in the “loss” category, President Trump has scored numerous wins during the first two years of his Presidency, proving himself to be a “promises made, promises kept” Commander-in-Chief. The string of accomplishments is impressive, particularly given the short amount of time. If these are any indication of things to come leading up to Election Day 2020, Trump will have a solid record with which to give any challenger a tough run. ECONOMY On Sept. 7, CNBC – no fan of Trump’s – ran an article headlined, “Trump Has Set Economic Growth on Fire.” The article stated that Trump “delivered on promises to cut taxes and regulations,” resulting in “a surge in company profits.” The Trump administration cut 66 regulations for each one added, leading to greater productivity. Consumer confidence, moreover, has been the highest it has been in 13 years, according to a University of Michigan survey. The Consumer Confidence Index, released this past October, showed the highest level of confidence since 2000. These and other factors have culminated in the Gross Domestic Product’s climbing higher than analysts’ most optimistic expectations, to 3 percent. In fact, Trump had 3 percent or more growth in GDP for three consecutive quarters. What has thatmeant for ordinary Americans? The unemployment rate was a hairline away from a 50-year low, at 3.9 percent, as four million more Americans found work, and the average income is the highest it has ever been. By contrast, after two years into the Obama Presidency, 2.6 million people lost their jobs, and 45 million people were reliant on government aid. In the manufacturing sector, according to Forbes, the number of jobs has risen 10 times Obama’s numbers in under two years. The rate of working Americans has resulted in nearly four million people being lifted off of food stamps. Trump lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21, and rolled back regulations for small businesses, bringing considerable relief to overburdened business owners struggling to serve their Donald Trump took the oath of office two years ago, on January 20, 2017, several months after the conclusion of one of the most contentious Presidential elections in U.S. history. Few political figures have managed to simultaneously evoke such fierce emotions of admiration and disgust like Trump, whose entrance into the U.S. political scene set it ablaze with controversy. TWO YEARS IN "The rate of working Americans has resulted in nearly four million people being lifted off of food stamps."