For President Donald J. Trump, 2017 concludes unlike the way it commenced.
His commanding inaugural address soon became swamped by an enervating debate over the size of the crowd that had witnessed it. That national screaming match foreshadowed other huge distractions, including court battles concerning Trump’s travel restrictions on terror-torn nations, a Niagara Falls of classified leaks, and loud threats of impeachment over alleged Russian collusion. Meanwhile, repealing and replacing Obamacare, expected to take just a few months, devolved into a quagmire that devoured time, energy, and morale.
But 2017 ends as Trump’s Year of Winning Dangerously. The President of the United States has navigated these and other troubled waters and defied his critics — from Resist on the left to Never Trump on the right. As he puts it: “We are compiling a long and beautiful list” of achievements.
As Trump and Republicans gathered at the White House to celebrate passage of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act with overwhelming GOP support, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell announced: “This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishments for the Trump administration.”
While free traders and entitlement reformers could ask for more, nearly all of Trump’s triumphs are solidly conservative victories. Indeed, Trump has implemented policies over which the Right has fantasized for years, sometimes decades.
The $1.5 trillion Tax Cut and Jobs Act is the most significant tax-policy overhaul since 1986. On January 1, these conservative dreams will come true: a massive slash in the corporate tax (from a 35 percent rate to 21, thus reducing the business levy by 40 percent), repatriation of overseas profits, a territorial tax system, and immediate expensing of capital investments.
Beyond taxes, per se, TCJA also secures free-market priorities in energy, health care, and school choice.
TCJA permits petroleum development in 2,000 acres of the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While leaving literally 99.99 percent of ANWR untouched, the 0.01 percent available for drilling could yield up to 1.45 million barrels of oil daily, equal to 14.5 percent of current domestic production. The GOP has tried to unlock ANWR since 1979.
TCJA makes enrollment in Obamacare voluntary by scrapping the individual-coverage mandate. Those who want Obamacare may keep it, but never again will anyone be penalized for rejecting Obamacare. While this will not kill Obama’s disastrous monstrosity immediately, it shoves a shiv between its ribs. This is the GOP’s greatest progress in snuffing out Obamacare since 2010.