Despite the current administration’s frequent protestations that the country has never had it so good as it has under President Joe Biden, Americans know a lousy economy when they see one — and they see a lousy economy.
Between rampant inflation and growth-killing regulations, voters aren’t as sanguine as the administration and its boosters are, something that shows in the polls.
If former President Donald Trump is to win in November, it might well be because he ran on James Carville’s timeless, epigrammatical advice: It’s the economy, stupid.
But what could a second Trump administration do to get the U.S. economy back on track? A piece published by Reuters Friday examined a number of ways Trump 47 would look to get America back, financially, to where it was under Trump 45 — before the COVID lockdowns hit, of course.
Seven policies in particular stood out:
No. 1: Handcuff overzealous financial regulators.
Reuters noted that Trump would aim to “sharply reduce the power of U.S. financial regulators, according to a review of public documents and interviews with people allied with the former president.”
Many of the agencies whose overreaching powers are being targeted got those powers in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. (As Rahm Emanuel noted, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”)
If those powers were mostly needless guardrails then, they’re absolutely superfluous now — and acting as an anchor on American business. One of the major targets will be limiting the purview afforded to federal officials under the Dodd-Frank Act, a series of rules enacted to limit risk that have, in practice, limited growth.
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The Reuters writers, as one might predict, appear to be wringing their hands over the possibility. Not only was it thrust of the headline for the piece — “If Trump wins, he plans to free Wall Street from ‘burdensome regulations’” — the news service even put “burdensome regulations” in scare quotes, like there was any doubt about the adjective.
Wall Street and Main Street, however, would be applauding.
No. 2: Making it easier for companies to raise capital.
Also on the table of paring back 2008-era regulations would be the ability to “allow companies to raise money with less scrutiny,” Reuters reported.
Those advising the presumptive nominee and those who would make up the new Trump administration, the wire service noted, were floating ideas “to make it easier for private companies to raise capital – in turn opening access to less transparent and more difficult-to-trade private funds and securities.“
While the Elizabeth Warrens of the world are likely freaking out about this, it’s again a major potential win for Wall Street and Main Street, which need to keep pace in the global economy by letting investors invest as if it were the 21st century, not the bygone days where the stuffy, clubby trading floors of the NYSE and NASDAQ were the primary ways of capital-raising.
No. 3: Attack ESG.
ESG — environmental, social, governance — scores are beloved of woke capital and the bane of sane investors. Not only has the screening tool been used to force a liberal agenda upon private corporations, it’s also been used to strong-arm companies into adopting policies that are bad for their bottom line but good for their stock price.
“As the academic literature has documented, ESG is too much in the eye of the beholder,” said Michael Faulkender, a former Trump administration Treasury Department official now with the America First Policy Institute.
“Therefore, it can and has been used to deviate from the fiduciary duty that money managers have to their clients, and it has distracted financial supervisors from the safety and soundness criteria that should be used in ensuring the ongoing strength of the U.S. financial system.”
ESG should have no place in a free economy — and if a second Trump administration can deal it a fatal broadside in its first 100 days, it’ll go a long way to undoing some of the social engineering wrought by Bidenomics.
And that’s a big place to start.
No. 4: Cut federal employment rolls.
Another mechanism to reduce the power of regulators and the federal budget? According to Reuters, “potential dramatic cuts to staff at regulators through a mechanism known as Schedule F, which would reclassify up to 50,000 civil servants across the government as easily-replaceable political appointees.”
It was the point of an executive order Trump issued in October 2020, but the next month’s election made it moot. President Joe Biden reversed it with his own executive order issued Jan. 22, 2021.
Every conservative’s TL;DR take on this? It couldn’t happen to a better group of people.
No. 5: Restructure — or even abolish — the Securities and Exchange Commission.
This may sound like an extreme move to some. After all, isn’t the SEC supposed to be in place to protect the little guy from the financial shenanigans of Big Capital?
In theory, yes — but, if there’s anything that the Obama and Biden administrations have taught us, it’s that the words “in theory” rarely translate into fact. As the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Bowes, another former Trump appointee, noted in a December social media post, the SEC under Biden has become “unaccountable meddling shakedown agency” that “uses its regulation to target political enemies, to ram through woke and radical green agenda.”
The Securities Exchange Commission is a hot mess. It is another unaccountable meddling shakedown agency that ignores real crime and instead uses its regulation to target political enemies, to ram through woke and radical green agenda (including requiring every publicly traded… https://t.co/2w7hSlD8I7
— Robert Bowes (@Robert_B_Bowes) December 4, 2023
Keep in mind, this was written in response to a joint amicus brief filed by billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Cuban at the Supreme Court in a case challenging the SEC’s distressing practice of conducting internal trials on matters that come before it, all without juries. If that sounds a bit like a kangaroo court, that’s because it’s the very definition of one. When you can get Musk and Cuban to come together on an amicus brief — a bit like getting socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and conservative Republican Sen. Josh Hawley to co-sponsor legislation — it must be really bad.
In other words, if the SEC cannot be reformed, it must be rebuilt.
Period.
No. 6: Roll back Biden’s regulations on the auto and energy industries.
“The Biden administration has pushed regulations to spur the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources,” Reuters noted, something that Trump would be likely to target.
“Trump has repeatedly said he wants much less regulation than now exists. A person who regularly speaks with him on economic matters said Trump would be ‘sure’ to ‘go after all of this climate change stuff,’ likely a nod to new corporate climate risk disclosure rules and ESG investments.”
This isn’t just about ESG, however. Energy prices have skyrocketed under the Biden administration and the attempt to force a widespread transition to electric vehicles — vehicles that consumers are increasingly rejecting on dealer lots, it’s worth noting — has impending disaster written all over it.
The sooner we stop pretending more EVs and windmills will solve the world’s energy and climate problems, the better for America’s economy.
No. 7: Keep the administration business-friendly, both in the cabinet and at the Treasury Department.
As we found out during the first Trump administration, staff matters. Epic disappointments like John Kelly and Jeff Sessions, inter alia, ended up being millstones around the administration’s neck.
In a second Trump administration, at least as far as matters of economics are concerned, two think tanks have positioned themselves as safe repositories of talent to tap for both the cabinet and Treasury Department.
“The Heritage Foundation, the influential Washington-based conservative think tank, has positioned itself as central to getting the agenda through regardless” of court challenges, Reuters noted.
“Heritage’s preparations, dubbed ‘Project 2025,’ include a more-than-900-page book of policy ideas and an expansive database of pre-screened personnel. The group has compiled policy recommendations since the Reagan era, but the latest edition includes more detail on financial regulation than in 2016.”
Also: “The America First Policy Institute, the nascent think tank led by Trump White House strategist Brooke Rollins, is also angling for influence,” Reuters reported.
“The group is home to more than 50 former Trump administration officials and staff, including Larry Kudlow, the FOX Business Network host and former White House economic adviser who remains close to Trump; Faulkender, who led the Covid-era Paycheck Protection Program at Treasury; and Robert Lighthizer, the former U.S. Trade Representative.”
Both operations likely strike fear in the hearts of Reuters. In other words, we like those prospects. A lot.
Bottom line: Of all the failures of the 46th presidency that the 47th president will have to reverse, the impact of “Bidenomics” may be the hardest. The good news is that Trump is already preparing a full-frontal assault on everything that made those eponymous policies so destructive.
If it’s something he keeps central to his campaign, our senescent president and his meddlesome apparatchiks stand no chance of continuing to hold court at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
