Credit Trump for boosting business and fueling our economic growth

The Hill cited the Competitive Enterprise Institute for the success of President Trump’s deregulatory policies and the postive impact said changes are materializing for business and investors

Progressive Democrats are in a tough spot. It is increasingly difficult to ignore that the economy is surging under President Trump. Both business and consumer confidence are above pre-recession levels. Just this week, the National Federation of Independent Businesses released its Small Business Optimism Index, which continued its “historically strong performance” extending “the streak of positive months dating back to last November, when it shot up immediately following the election.”

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index increased in October “to its highest level in almost 17 years” dating back to December 2000. The latest labor market report was solid with the official unemployment rate at a 17-year low and a broader measure many economists consider the real unemployment rate, known as the U-6 rate, is at a 16-year low. For the first time in three years, gross domestic product has grown by at least 3 percent for two consecutive quarters. The reports from main street are also positive.

Earlier this month, the trucking industry provided a very positive sign of increasing economic growth when the transportation intelligence firm FTR reported that October orders for Class 8 trucks increased an impressive 167 percent over last year. It was the fifth straight month of increasing gains. These are the semis and big rigs that move goods across the country. When the economy is growing, we need more of them. FTR expects this “strong production environment to persist into 2018.”

Unable to credibly ignore this economic surge, the current tactic for progressive Democrats is to deny its cause. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) recently stated that Trump deserves “absolutely” no credit for the growing economy because he has yet to pass “any legislation,” has not been “involved in public policy” and “doesn’t know really what’s going on on Wall Street.” While few people look to Representative Waters for economic guidance, CNN’s global economic analyst Rana Foroohar claimed, “We’ve fact checked the fact that Donald Trump does not deserve credit for anything good that has happened in the American economy in the last six months.”

This “Trump gets no credit” approach says a lot about how poorly progressive Democrats understand what drives economic growth. It isn’t more government; its less. In his first nine months, President Trump has taken a machete to the Obama era’s rules and regulations that have been choking American businesses like parasitic vines. In fact, a recent analysis by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian think tank, found that Trump is deregulating the economy at a pace no other president ever has.

According to CEI, Trump’s has reduced the Federal Register’s page count by an impressive 32 percent compared to President Obama at this time last year. This put him on course to beat President Reagan’s record of a “one-third reduction in Federal Register pages following Jimmy Carter’s then-record Federal Register.” But that reduction took Reagan years to accomplish. Trump has been in office nine months. “So, by this metric, Trump is moving much faster” already making him the “least-regulatory president since Reagan.” There is little doubt that he will exceed Reagan’s record becoming the least regulatory president period.

Read the entire article at The Hill