In a detailed look at Donald Trump’s first year in office – which Democrats and their media allies have persistently tried to tie in knots – veteran political writer Paul Bedard lays out a strong case in the Washington Examiner for putting the president clearly in the winner’s column.
Listing 81 accomplishments, from the economy and jobs to improving America’s trade position and national security, Bedard covers lots of ground. From all indications, according to Bedard’s narrative, the president is doing what he promised. He is making America great again, say supporters.
The contrast between the past 12 months and the previous eight years is nearly shattering. The disparity was underscored earlier this month by former President Barack Obama’s self-indulgent attempt to pat himself on the back for the strong economy.
Meanwhile, the nation is enjoying a holiday break from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s continuing campaign to explain why she’s not president, evidently still unable to grasp the fact that all the pontification she can muster is not going to change the outcome of November 2016.
But there is something Trump, and more specifically, the GOP-controlled Congress, has not yet accomplished: Making the Second Amendment Great Again. Naming Justice Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court was a step in the right direction, but a stronger pro-Second Amendment majority is necessary to take up prickly questions about concealed carry and bans on so-called “assault weapons.”
Democrats, smarting from their loss on tax reform, which took down one of Obama’s legacy centerpieces – the individual mandate tax tenet of Obamacare – will fight bitterly to prevent national concealed carry reciprocity from becoming law. If Trump gets another Supreme Court vacancy to fill, Capitol Hill anti-gunners led by Sen. Charles Schumer will stop at nothing to prevent another conservative from being confirmed.
Fox News perhaps put it best by noting:
“After nearly a decade of stagnant economic growth, this historic tax overhaul will restore America’s position as the center of the world’s global economy.
“This important legislation also includes a critical provision to give Americans greater choice when it comes to their health insurance coverage by repealing ObamaCare’s onerous and punitive individual mandate tax – knocking down a major pillar of what has proven to be an unworkable and unpopular law.”
Schumer has been a leading critic of the new tax reform law, claiming that it will not lower taxes for Middle Class Americans as Republicans insist.
Schumer should be reminded that those same Middle Class taxpayers are still waiting for that $2,500 savings on their health insurance that was promised by partisan Democrat passage of the so-called “Affordable Care Act,” which it has turned out not to be.
But Trump heads into the holidays a winner, along with Congressional Republicans. Their big hurdle now is to prove to America’s gun owners that they deserved support in 2016, and will earn it again in November 2018 by passing reciprocity.
