We can safely say a couple things about the direction of the Trump economy.
One, the messaging is horrendous.
But two, there are signs that things are turning around thanks to some sensible pro-growth policies that the president’s critics ignore but the American people shouldn’t.
If you haven’t noticed, even in his own disjointed way, the president has a lot on his plate.
He is valiantly pushing back against the insanity of the Democratic Party and its insurgent leftist activist wing.
We’re talking open borders, mindless spending, the woke cultural change that includes normalizing the transing of children, and a lot more that threatens the republic.
He is also trying to remake an economy that Biden handed him, one with crippling elevated prices on goods that have hit Average Americans hard.
He’s doing so with pro-growth solutions including policies in his Big Beautiful Bill that, if history is any guide, should bear fruit soon.
I know it’s easy to mock that piece of legislation because of its Trumpian braggadocio, but there are signs that the economy is adjusting to the good that’s about to come.
Consider: Working Americans — the same people crushed by Biden-era inflation — will be reaping the rewards of Trump’s new tax deductions for “qualified tips,” a k a no tax on tips, a working-class tax cut if there ever was one.
For businesses, there’s an expansion of small business tax deduction.
Small businesses account for much of the country’s job creation and this will make it easier.
In terms of big businesses, they will soon be “expensing” and writing off more of their R&D, the costs of creating new factories and improving equipment.
Deregulation of the energy sector is already leading to lower energy policies and ditching of the federalization of green energy edicts should keep prices lower, even in states run by lefty public official controlled by the Green Lobby where the costs of keeping your lights on and heating during the winter (think New York, New Jersey among the leading culprits) remain too high.
The problem Trump faces is that these policies will take time to filter through the economy.
Take Thursday’s inflation numbers.
They look good, down to 2.7% from 3% a year ago.
They seem to be inching toward the Fed’s so-far elusive 2% target, thus confirming that the Trump economic policies are working to reverse the mess that Harris and her barely sentient boss, Joe Biden, left him.
But I can’t find a single Wall Street numbers cruncher who is confident in the latest data, since it was amassed incompletely after the government shutdown.
Plus 2.7% inflation is still too high for most working people given the already elevated Biden-level prices.
Earlier in the week, we received some more muddle.
The November unemployment rate ticked up a bit to 4.6%, sending Trump’s critics into a feeding frenzy of back slapping glee that his presidency was failing just at the right time with the midterms approaching.
Look deeper and you see that, yes, the rate ticked up a bit, but it remains historically solid, materially and statistically unchanged during those four years.
Trying to unravel all this into a positive message isn’t easy to begin with — but sometimes the President and his advisers make it worse.
They spin the very real affordability crisis as a “con job.”
It isn’t, and it has been stoked at least in small part by the tariffs that he’s been busy trying to reverse or lessen by handing out checks to injured groups like farmers.
When Trump recently posted on social media that the country is entering a “Golden Age,” he undercut his message in the breath with some insensitive and pointless comments about the tragic death of Rob Reiner.
Better to begin explaining the good that’s coming on top of an economy, which as I last checked is still growing despite the affordability crisis.
It isn’t an A-plus-plus-plus economy as Trump claims, but with some help from Trump’s pro-growth policies, we might really be heading in the right direction and if we’re lucky, a Golden Age to come.
