Now that the election is over and Donald Trump has won not only the electoral vote but the popular vote as well, it is time to think about what he may do and should do in his second term.  It seems to me that he should forcefully address the issues where the Biden/Harris Administration was especially weak and which led to Trump’s massive victory.  What are these issues?

• Inflation, deficit spending, and the economy. It is now widely accepted that it was the excessive Covid stimulus spending that tripped off inflation in Spring 2021; especially Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed by the Democratic Congress in March 2021.  Our spending deficit for FY 2024, which just ended September 30, was over $1.8 trillion, which is way too high for a growing economy and puts upward pressure on the consumer price index.  The solution is to massively cut federal spending and Elon Musk has agreed to help Trump do this.  Hopefully, this will become a major priority for the new administration.

  

• Border Security. Another huge weakness of Biden/Harris was to greatly relax security at our southern border with Mexico.  We are already taking in a million new immigrants legally each year and we need even more to meet our large labor shortage.  But letting undocumented immigrants pour over the border without restraint is not the way to get this done.  Let’s increase worker visa programs as well as new categories for legal immigration.  This shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish.

  

• Weak Foreign Policy. Starting with Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, his response to international crises has been weak.  Putin was encouraged to invade Ukraine in February 2022 for this reason.  Hopefully, Trump will get much tougher with Russia.  Also, letting the Houthis disrupt shipping in the Red Sea is another disaster.  We need to continue working with our democratic allies in Asia (Japan, South Korea, and Australia) to deter China’s military buildup, but China is unlikely to invade Taiwan anytime soon.  The resulting sanctions from the US and our allies would do great damage to the already precarious Chinese economy.

Conclusion.  The new Trump Administration has a clear mandate to strongly address these three issues which are the primary reasons Trump defeated Harris so handily.  A Republican Senate and likely Republican House will surely support sensible policies to fix these three problems.

For my Email Newsletter
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter