2018 Victories: The ACLJ’s Commonsense Conservative Agenda Helps Place American Economic Reform on the Right Track

This is the latest installment in a year-end series looking back at some of the numerous victories by the ACLJ in 2018.

The ACLJ issued an ambitious economic agenda for reform, stressing commonsense conservatism and economic growth for America. This year, we’ve seen numerous aspects of this agenda begin to be implemented.

Our agenda proposed the repeal and replacement of ObamaC are with a focus on emphasizing choice and competition, including taking affirmative steps to waive or eliminate fines associated with the individual mandate. While Congress failed to enact all of these reforms, the new tax law severely undercut many of ObamaCare’s worst components, and the Administration took further steps to mitigate others.

We called for lower taxes, a streamlining of the federal regulatory process including a move requiring that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated, the lifting of Obama Administration roadblocks to full employment, and the removal of road blocks to vital energy infrastructure projects like the Keystone Pipeline. Today, we can report that these agenda items have been implemented.

When President Trump took office, he made a number of promises regarding the floundering U.S. economy that were in line with our own recommendations.

Recognizing the prior Administration’s failure to deliver economic growth for the middle-class, President Trump’s inaugural address argued that to get the economy on track, the nation must create 25 million jobs and reach an economic growth rate of 4%.

This year, real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 4.1%, as consumer spending championed the economy. This jump represents the fastest increase in GDP growth since the third quarter of 2014, putting the U.S. economy on course to hit the highest annual average growth rate in over 13 years, thus making the President’s promise of 4% economic growth a reality. 

In addition, reports earlier this year showed Americans have made gains in wages that brought wage gains up for the past 12-month period to a 2.8 percent, which is the highest level since 2008.

All Americans know that significant wage gains have been a missing part of the economic recovery for quite some time, with average hourly earnings increases barely keeping pace with inflation. That is until now.

The Trump Administration has also continued to pursue fair trade in order to put American workers first.

All Americans should recognize that an ambitious economic agenda that includes job growth, wage gains, tax cuts, health care reform, and fair trade represents economic progress for America.

Of course, there is much more work to be done to clean up mistakes of past administrations, but the American economy finally looks to be getting back on track, following policies in line with the ACLJ’s commonsense conservative agenda for economic growth.

We continue to believe that the lower taxes caused by the new tax bill that went into effect this year will put more of your money back in your pocket – and that’s always good for the economy.

To help the ACLJ continue to have the resources we need to make these victories possible and continue these fights, please consider making a Tax-Deductible donation to the ACLJ through our year-end Matching Challenge. Your gift will be DOUBLED dollar-for-dollar through the end of the year.

You can read more in the ACLJ’s 2018 Victories series here.

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