Webb: Trump, year one

Tax cuts by year end will make a difference.

Former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the resistance still won’t accept it, but they can’t change the reality that Donald Trump is the 45th president of the United States. In simple terms and in spite of their attempts to rig the election for Hillary Clinton, the Clinton dynasty is over and there is no one to take the reins for the next generation. They fought and bought their way to the top and now are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the political discourse.

As I stated in an earlier article, the first 100 days is an artificial construct politically and in many ways so is year one but at least there is time to do an assessment while ignoring the false timeline. As the economy continues to surge, it’s even more important that the GOP pass tax reform.

{mosads}First, a review of the current economic picture.

In the October jobs report, the administration and the American people received more good news. Due, in part, to the president’s deregulatory and pro-business agenda, the American economy is expanding.

The unemployment rate is the lowest since 2000 at 4.1 percent. Nearly 1.5 million jobs have been added to the economy since President Trump took office. Twenty-four thousand manufacturing jobs were added in October, the services sector hit a record high and U.S. worker productivity improved in the third quarter to its best rating in three years. The president recently announced Broadcom corporation would relocate to the United States, and with it comes $20 billion of annual revenue, $3 billion in research and engineering and $6 billion annually in manufacturing. The war on coal that the Obama administration started is over and U.S. coal production is up almost 8 percent in the past year.

Home prices have reached all-time highs in August, according to a CNBC report. A recent concern was expressed by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) regarding the homeownership tax credit and its removal from the House of Representatives tax proposal.

For example, in Miami-Dade County, Fla., the NAHB projects there will be over a 128 percent increase in taxpayers who claim the proposed homeownership tax credit versus the current mortgage interest and property interest deduction.

The NAHB Chairman Granger MacDonald issued an official statement which reads in part, “The House Republican tax reform plan abandons middle-class taxpayers in favor of high-income Americans and wealthy corporations. The bill eviscerates existing housing tax benefits by drastically reducing the number of home owners who can take advantage of mortgage interest and property tax incentives.” MacDonald further states “The House leadership killed a cost-effective plan proposed by NAHB that Ways and Means Committee leaders agreed to include in the legislation. It would provide a robust homeownership tax credit that would have helped up to 37 million additional home owners who do not currently itemize. Most of them are low-and moderate-income home owners.”

When it comes to tax cuts and a true tax cut tool kit, the rule should be the simpler the better. Complex is a path to failure and if all else fails there is the three easy pieces initiative that I have written about before. In this scenario I have more hope in the U.S. House to get something done before the U.S. Senate fails.

When it comes to simplification, it is not for the wealthy or multinational corporations. Simplification is about the 90 percent of Americans who just want a smoother April 15 tax day without having to hire an accountant, pay for software or make a mad rush to a storefront tax filer.

The Democrat opposition is contradictory to positions they have held before. In the past, Democrats claimed they wanted simplification and rate reduction in corporate taxes, but now with the Republicans in charge they oppose it.

Simplifying the code will make the economy more efficient and bring down the 6 billion hours spent annually complying with the mammoth tax code as it exists.

Many Democrats have been relying on analysis done by the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, which has just retracted their preliminary analysis on the House GOP bill. Yet even in this retracted report, they stated accurately there will be tax cuts for every income group.

According to the Pew Research Center, 80 percent of Americans have begun to feel that the American dream is once again within reach. It’s a fair question to ask, is 4 percent growth achievable? Time will tell if the Republicans are successful with tax cuts. Tax cuts spur economic growth and since growth is already underway, the GOP path to success is historically clear.

Will Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the junior Arizona senator, Jeff Flake, both leaders of the anti-Trump brigade in the Senate, go against the will of the Arizona and American voter who cast a vote for President Donald Trump?

Year two may prove to be quite exciting with the looming congressional elections.

Webb is host of “The David Webb Show” on SiriusXM Patriot ’25, a Fox News contributor and a frequent television commentator. His column appears twice a month in The Hill.