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Today is President Donald Trump’s birthday! Here are six reasons to wish President Trump a happy birthday:

  1. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

    • President Trump delivered the most far-reaching pro-growth tax reform legislation in a generation.

    • The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced taxes on American families at every income level and businesses and for businesses large and small. A family of four earning the median income of $73,000 is seeing a federal tax cut of $2,000, while overall tax liability has dropped by almost 25 percent, according to a report from H&R block. 

    • The TCJA also reduced the federal corporate rate from 35 percent (the highest in the developed world) to 21 percent and enacted a 20 percent small business deduction for businesses organized as passthrough entities. This rate reduction has made the U.S. competitive with other countries and has allowed businesses to invest in the economy and in American workers.

    • The Tax Cuts have also grown the economy. The unemployment rate is at 3.6 percent — the lowest rate since 1969 – and has been below 4 percent for 15 consecutive months. Similarly, nominal average wages have grown by at or above 3 percent for the past 10 months. An average of 196,000 jobs have been created each month over the past year.

  2. The FIRST Step Act 

    • At the end of 2018, President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act, a broadly bipartisan set of prison and sentencing reforms, into law. The law is the product of nearly a decade of justice reform advocacy efforts and includes the most sweeping set of reforms since 2010.

    • The new law incentivizes recidivism reduction programming by providing time release credits to low-risk, non-violent offenders. Under the law, qualified inmates can receive 10 days of credits for every 30 days of recidivism reduction programming. Participants can cash out their credits by going to a halfway house or through in-home confinement. Now that the bill is law, thousands have the opportunity to complete recidivism reduction programming in exchange for time credits.

  3. Nominating Ajit Pai to the FCC

        4. Dismantling Obama’s unlawful energy regulations

  • President Trump has been a leader in energy deregulation.

  • The Trump EPA began the process of replacing Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) by proposing their own regulatory framework, the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Plan.

  • Obama’s CPP was an economic nightmare. The CPP was projected to cause a 12 to 17 percent increase in electricity prices and would’ve decreased household spending power between $64 and $79 billion, with annual compliance costs projected to reach up to $73 billion. The economic impact on businesses and families would’ve been crippling.

  • According to the EPA’s estimate, replacing the CPP with the ACE rule will net $3.4 billion in benefits, including $400 million annually, and could save up to $6.4 billion in compliance costs.

           5. Modernizing NAFTA

  • Trump has put renegotiating trade deals with other countries at the forefront of his legislative agenda. The United States — Mexico — Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) updates NAFTA to include new automotive rules, new protections for intellectual property rights, and modernizing agricultural trade to benefit American farmers.
  • According to the report, the USMCA would raise U.S. real GDP by $68.2 billion and create approximately 176,000 American jobs. The report estimates that the USMCA would have a positive impact on all U.S. industry sectors, with the manufacturing and services sectors experiencing the most gains.

6.  Providing greater flexibility and choice within the healthcare system

  • Earlier this week, the Trump administration finalized a rule to expand the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). This proposal, which was released jointly by the Treasury Department, Labor Department, and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will promote employer flexibility and choice in the healthcare system.
  • This rule will allow employers to offer HRAs to their employers to purchase insurance as an alternative to employer provided care. HRA funds are tax free to both the employer and employee and funds roll over year to year. 

  • More than 80 percent of employers currently offer their workers just one choice, and this rule will allow businesses more flexibility to offer their workers’ health insurance coverage. In fact, it is estimated that this new rule will help 11 million workers and 800,000 businesses.

Happy Birthday, President Trump!