Trump Makes His Pitch A calm, measured President sets a direction on health care but not taxes.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-makes-his-pitch-1488345558
Donald Trump’s challenge Tuesday night was to look like he was up to the Presidency after a rocky start and set a clear direction for Congress. He succeeded more on the former than the latter, and the test now will be whether he can corral a fractious Congress to deliver in particular on tax reform and health care.
As a presidential rookie, Mr. Trump showed he could deliver a speech on this kind of stage in a calm and measured way. We haven’t seen enough of that in his first five weeks, and in that sense on Tuesday he rose to the occasion in democracy’s center ring. He was less tendentious than in his inaugural, and he began and ended with notes of unity and inclusiveness that have been too few in his early days.
Mr. Trump’s tone was also less combative than in his press conferences or TV appearances, and he didn’t sound like he was delivering a moral lecture as President Obama so often did. His blunt, plain language has been part of his political appeal, and for the most part he also avoided the defensiveness and self-focus that are unbecoming in the world’s most powerful political leader.
Even better was a tone of relative optimism. We say relative because his previous major speeches, including the inaugural, have included a parade of American horribles. On Tuesday he offered more than a few downbeats, including an overwrought picture of crime and a country besieged by foreign scoundrels. But he also pointed to better days and noted that Americans have always overcome their troubles.
The speech was less helpful in laying down clear markers for Congress on his signature reforms. The biggest miss was on taxes, where he barely developed his case for reform beyond what he has said in the campaign. He made only a tepid argument for the supply-side benefits of tax reform and instead cast corporate tax cuts mainly as a way to “create a level playing field for American companies and workers.”
This generality may reflect the indecision within his own economic team about how to proceed on tax reform. But with Republicans on Capitol Hill all over the place on taxes and spending, Mr. Trump missed an opportunity to make a better case and to set a firm timetable for action that can’t afford to go beyond 2017.
Also striking are the President’s contradictions on the wellsprings of economic growth. He understands that tax cuts and deregulation are essential to unleashing investment at home, but his capitalist instincts stop at the border. His invocation of the hoary old Lincoln quote about the virtues of “protective policy” couldn’t be less appropriate for the modern U.S. economy that needs global markets and world-class talent to succeed.
This is the “economic nationalism” promoted by his chief strategist Steve Bannon, and it is intended to show voters that Mr. Trump is on their side. But if it is ever put into practice it will undermine the rest of his growth agenda.
The President was better on health care, where he offered a set of sound principles. These included more competition and individual choice: “it must be the plan they want, not the plan forced on them by the government.”
Perhaps most important, he made clear that Republicans can’t merely repeal ObamaCare and hope for the best. Too many conservatives seem to think this is all they need to do to honor their campaign promises, but the moment they repeal it they will own every premium increase and cancelled health plan. Mr. Trump will have to keep making the case that Republicans need to improve the health-insurance marketplace or voters will hold them accountable.
Mr. Trump also made a strong pitch on education, which he rightly called “the civil-rights issue of our time.” He called on both parties to fund more school choice for “disadvantaged youth,” and Democrats should want to help, though most will follow whatever the teachers unions demand.
As usual for new Presidents, Mr. Trump’s main focus was domestic reform, and the foreign-policy sections offered no notable details. He was reassuring in calling for “a direct, robust and meaningful engagement with the world” and he also invoked “American leadership.” How that will manifest itself beyond destroying Islamic State, he did not say.
Our guess is the speech won’t do much to move Democrats in a polarized Washington. But perhaps it will reassure nervous Republicans who have wondered when he would focus on the hard task of governing. The speech puts him on firmer ground for that challenge.
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