Do Nothing President?

Its impossible to predict what would have happened if the election results were different.  As unhinged as the new president seems, he hasn't done anything that fundamentally different than the previous administration.

Of course some of his followers would dispute that but in the economic world we haven't changed taxes, we did eliminate a few regulations and he's tried to talk companies into keeping jobs here.

Now what he may have done is create a certain sense that business is going to get better treatment, and to some extent that could lead to a better economy as they expand and create some new jobs.

Job growth has however been basically the same before and after the election, so unless the expectation was for it to plummet it is hard to see an impact.

Also the stock market has been going up, but it was already going up.

So the impact really hard to determine.

It almost seems like except for entertainment value, he has no real impact anywhere.

He tried to cow some senators to vote for a do nothing health bill that would have allowed the House to get into negotiations, but it almost impossible to imagine how anything would come out that conference that could pass in the Senate.

Now concerning tax reform, something that was another big agenda item, it has been postponed and is likely going to be pushed into 2018.  Of course what the tax reform will do is difficult to say and I'm not sure anyone knows.

If you want to spend more money on National Defense, Infrastructure and not touch programs like Social Security or Medicare, you dun into a debt problem that the conservative right won't accept.  meanwhile gutting all the discretionary programs is unpopular with almost everybody since everybody has constituents that use some of those programs.

However you might feel about the national debt, it is there and it costs us a lot of money in interest, which could skyrocket if interest rates go up much.

Somehow the deficit has to be reduced or eliminated to get it under control.

Reducing business taxes and taxes on the wealthy while spending more isn't going to work.  This is supply side economics that thinks that if you tax less, more will be produced since its profitable which actually ends up as increased taxes.  Its never worked to any great extent in the past, but of course supply siders argue it wasn't fully implemented.

Of course if you try it and it doesn't work, we have a lot more debt and need a lot more taxes.

We rolling those dice?