Marc Short: Why Trump’s second term populism has true conservatives like me worried

There are, to be sure, reasons for excitement among conservatives as Trump retakes the White House. Chief among them are economic revival and border security. These were the most important issues for voters in the 2024 election, and Trump’s schema for addressing them is drastically different from the Biden-Harris disaster of the last four years.

Under the previous administration, prices rose more than 22% overall and real wages fell by 1.3%. Kamala Harris’ campaign promises of socialist-style price controls and nonsense claims about “price gouging” clearly did not restore voter confidence. Additionally, in a study produced for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, Casey Mulligan, former chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, showed Biden’s overbearing regulations cost American households around $10,000 each. The Biden administration’s spending has been so reckless that the Congressional Budget Office now estimates the federal debt will be $7.2 trillion higher by 2031 than its projections from four years ago.

American voters believe Trump will be more effective in extinguishing inflation and protecting them from higher taxes. One of the clearest and simplest steps Trump and Congress should take to stimulate economic growth is to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TJCA). A hallmark of the Trump-Pence administration, the TCJA created a revenue boom that massively outperformed CBO projections, despite a global pandemic. The tax cuts also gave Americans more of their hard-earned wages back, increasing real median household income by more than $6,000 over two years. Small businesses were freed from the shackles of overregulation, and the reduction in the corporate tax rate allowed American businesses to be globally competitive.

Economic advancement can also come through unleashing American energy, a cause which Trump campaigned on vociferously. The Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act has been a categorical disaster. Not only has it crippled innovation and distorted markets with haphazard subsidies, but it has also cost $1.2 trillion more than its supporters originally claimed. Supplanting the IRA with domestic energy production will bolster the labor market and provoke a much-needed uptick in domestic manufacturing.

To address voters’ concerns about the southern border, Trump should resume his first-term policies to stop the uncontrolled influx of drugs and crime into the United States. Weapons, fentanyl and humans are being trafficked over the southern border at soaring rates. The new administration should move swiftly to eliminate Biden’s disastrous “catch and release” policies, finally put an end to sanctuary cities by declaring them ineligible for federal grants, and mobilize immigration enforcement to protect American citizens from migrant violence.