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Conservatives have a lot to be thankful for as we approach Thanksgiving. The outlook might not look so rosy next year, though, if President Donald Trump does not make some course corrections.
There’s so much to choose from that any list is bound to be insufficient. Going in chronological order, the efforts to reduce federal spending that started with the DOGE Commission have to be high on any conservative’s list.
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Republican presidents often talk a good game when it comes to spending, but the walk rarely matches the talk. Not so for Trump. Taking an axe to the U.S. Agency for International Development has saved billions of dollars. Massive reductions in the federal workforce will also save billions more.
There’s also the end of support for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. This vote reduces spending by over $1 billion. This long-overdue act means these biased sources of left-leaning “news” and commentary now must depend on charitable contributions and payments from state and local governments.
These may be drops in the bucket compared to the federal government’s $7 trillion annual budget. But spending control has to start somewhere, and the Trump administration has started off well.
Immigration policy is another source of conservative joy. Trump immediately ended Biden’s open border via executive order, leading to the fewest number of unauthorized border crossings in over 50 years. The spigot of illegal arrivals has been turned off, hopefully for good.
Deportation activity has also significantly increased on Trump’s watch. The Administration claims to have already deported over 500,000 people, although other sources suggest that number might be high. It’s indisputable, however, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is holding a record high number of people in detention. The illegal immigrant population is finally going down.
Then there’s the One Big Beautiful Bill. This landmark law made the 2017 individual tax cuts permanent and added some new ones on a temporary basis. That prevented a big tax hike that would have hurt everyone.
The OBBB also made significant steps toward cutting spending on Medicaid and the food assistance program known as SNAP. Democrats are rolling out their usual playbook, claiming these cuts will throw deserving people out on the street. But in fact, most of them are simple common sense.
The largest Medicaid cut, for example, comes from installing minimal work effort requirements for receipt of benefits. Able-bodied, working-aged recipients without young children or dependents will have to volunteer or work at least 20 hours a week. The savings come from projections that many people won’t do this – or perhaps that many recipients are fraudulent enrollments who aren’t even people at all. Polls regularly show that such requirements are overwhelmingly popular.
Americans opposed to the woke onslaught also have lots to appreciate. A host of policies are rooting out discriminatory DEI policies from businesses and universities. Transgender ideology is also in retreat, as the President is committed to rolling back such abuses as allowing transgender women from competing in women’s sports. There’s still a long way to go, but the direction is clear.
Foreign policy also belongs on this list. The Administration’s support for Israel has allowed it to demolish many of its adversaries, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. America’s devastating attack on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities has set back that terrorist state’s ambitions by years, making Israel and Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia much safer.
Trump’s language has often been rough, but his “let’s get real” attitude toward our traditional allies is also bearing fruit. NATO partners are finally committing to building real militaries rather than relying on America for their defense. South Korea has also pledged to increase its defense spending to NATO’s 3.5% of GDP goal, and other allies such as Japan are ramping their spending up too.
It will take years for this added capacity to come online, and there’s always the risk that some nations will not meet their commitments. But it’s a dramatic and welcome move that had not occurred under decades of gentle prodding by presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden. It took the bull in the china shop, Trump, to finally get our allies to step up to the plate.
One might notice that this list does not include praise for a roaring economy. That’s because it’s not red hot. This is one of the areas where Trump needs to focus and deliver results in the next year or suffer consequences in the midterm election.
Unemployment, for example, has increased slightly since President Trump took office. The most recent inflation rate was also higher than when he was inaugurated. Things aren’t bad for most people, but they are not getting better and for many they are getting a little worse.
Trump’s tariff policies aren’t helping either. That’s not to say they are bad or wrong-headed, but the pain tariffs inevitably impose — higher prices and slower job growth in affected industries — occur before the anticipated gains as production shifts back can arise.
This dynamic is similar to what President Ronald Reagan faced as he tried to reverse stagflation with his tax cuts, deregulation, and tight monetary policy. Crushing inflation pushed interest rates through the roof, causing the deepest recession at that time since the Great Depression. The changes that a massive reduction in marginal income tax rates and deregulation would unleash, on the other hand, took a couple of years to manifest themselves.
The pain was worth the gain, economically and politically. But the 1982 midterm elections were bleak for Republicans as Reagan’s job approval sank under the weight of poor economic news.
Trump needs to do what Reagan did to weather the storm. Reagan argued that voters should give his reforms time to work: he called it “staying the course”. Enough did that the GOP survived with control of the Senate, setting the political stage for Reagan’s historic 1984 landslide win as economic growth roared back.
Trump should also adapt his immigration enforcement policies, too. His popular vote triumph was founded on large shifts in the Asian and Latino communities, but those groups have soured on him in the wake of ICE’s tactics. There are too many reports of U.S. citizens being manhandled or arrested improperly as agents pursue illegal immigrants. That’s the sort of thing that infuriates people and is likely unnecessary even in a strong enforcement push like the one Trump is launching.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should work with border czar Tom Homan to minimize these encounters even if they slow progress in deporting illegals. Ending illegal immigration will take years, and that means maintaining public support throughout the process.
The Administration should also implement measures to push employers to terminate illegal workers. It should explore whether existing law allows the IRS to audit corporate tax returns and disallow deductions for wages paid to illegal workers. If the law does, the IRS should start to prioritize this in its audit program. Nothing will dry up the demand for illegal workers more than hitting their employers square in their pocketbooks.
It should also look to use the bully pulpit to encourage voluntary employer usage of the government’s E-Verify program. E-Verify has flaws, but it generally works to ensure that a job applicant is legally allowed to work in the United States.
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Perhaps the Department of Labor should create a “red, white, and blue star” program whereby companies with a 100% legally checked workforce can be certified as such by the government and advertise that fact. You can bet that employers will want to have that tacit endorsement, especially if it is accompanied by press conferences and a visible symbol akin to the EPA’s “Energy Star” program for home appliances.
Conservatives can count their blessings as they gather for turkey and all the trimmings next week. With a few midterm adjustments, President Trump can deliver another joyous holiday next year as well.
