What Trump Could Say Tomorrow Night, Even If He Won’t
A modest proposal for doing populism well
In case you missed it, I highly recommend last week’s podcast conversation with Stanford’s Colin Kahl on what the AI debate gets wrong, what winning the real AI race will take, and why it matters.
President Donald Trump will address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening, providing an early opportunity to frame his administration’s initial blitz of actions and set expectations for the year to come. The occasion provides a useful opportunity to distinguish, in the administration’s actions to date, between those that are of interest primarily to the commentariat and those that might impact the ordinary American household. It also seems likely to underscore the gap between those areas where plans are needed and those where plans seem to exist.
On one hand, it is unfair to judge a first five weeks of an administration by concrete accomplishments. Five weeks is not much time to get much done, especially when the act of staffing the relevant agencies and councils is itself one of the key tasks. On the other hand, that reality argues for thoughtful sequencing and clear communication. Day One actions should be those which can be accomplished on Day One, or else initiate processes that will proceed on plausible timelines. Quick wins should be focused in those areas where one can achieve victory quickly.
For instance, establishing policies and deploying resources to secure the border can be done immediately and has already delivered extraordinary results. “How much of the federal workforce can we lay off?” is not a good choice in that respect. Announcing tariffs before plans are in place for calculating or implementing tariffs delivers many of the policy’s costs and none of the benefits.
Let’s take a look at Ronald Reagan’s initial joint address, delivered roughly one month into his first term. Reagan provided a crisp diagnosis of the nation’s ailments and then said, “I am proposing a comprehensive four-point program. Now, let me outline in detail some of the principal parts of this program. You'll each be provided with a completely detailed copy of the entire program.” He continued:
This plan is aimed at reducing the growth in government spending and taxing, reforming and eliminating regulations which are unnecessary and unproductive or counterproductive, and encouraging a consistent monetary policy aimed at maintaining the value of the currency. If enacted in full, this program can help America create 13 million new jobs, nearly 3 million more than we would have without these measures. It will also help us to gain control of inflation.
It's important to note that we're only reducing the rate of increase in taxing and spending. We're not attempting to cut either spending or taxing levels below that which we presently have. This plan will get our economy moving again, [create] productivity growth, and thus create the jobs that our people must have.
He proceeded to detail his expectations for the following year’s budget, built around principles for where cuts would and would not be pursued. He announced “an interagency task force to attack waste and fraud,” explaining:
We're also planning to appoint as Inspectors General highly trained professionals who will spare no effort to do this job. No administration can promise to immediately stop a trend that has grown in recent years as quickly as government expenditures themselves, but let me say this: Waste and fraud in the Federal Government is exactly what I've called it before—an unrelenting national scandal, a scandal we're bound and determined to do something about.
He described his plan for reductions in tax rates over the next three years, regretting that he could not start them more quickly. He announced a new approach to deregulation, having just the prior day issued the seminal Executive Order 12,291, establishing the centralized regulatory review process for all major rules that persists to this day. He emphasized the need to slow the growth of the money supply to stamp out inflation.
And he set expectations, concluding:
Together we can embark on this road, not to make things easy, but to make things better. Our social, political, and cultural, as well as our economic institutions, can no longer absorb the repeated shocks that have been dealt them over the past decades. Can we do the job? The answer is yes. But we must begin now. … I would direct a question to those who have indicated already an unwillingness to accept such a plan: Have they an alternative which offers a greater chance of balancing the budget, reducing and eliminating inflation, stimulating the creation of jobs, and reducing the tax burden? And, if they haven't, are they suggesting we can continue on the present course without coming to a day of reckoning? … True, it'll take time for the favorable effects of our proposal to be felt. So, we must begin now. The people are watching and waiting. They don't demand miracles. They do expect us to act.
What would a four-part program to address the ailments of 2020s America entail? I’ll spare you the pundit’s typical conceit of simply telling you what my own priorities are and why Trump should adopt them. We’re working here within his own rhetoric, priorities, and coalition. To show you I mean it, I’ve put “tax cuts” on the list.
OK, here goes:
1. We’re going to build again.
As I wrote in Foreign Affairs recently:
Trump’s ambition to build marks a rare point of agreement among the diverse factions that compose the Republican Party under his leadership. His multiethnic, working-class base takes particular interest in the prospects for a resurgence in manufacturing to create good blue-collar jobs, revitalize communities, and eliminate reliance on foreign producers. The Silicon Valley technologists salivate at the prospect of slashing red tape and maximizing rewards for productive enterprise. The “America first” economic nationalists are eager to develop natural resources to the fullest and restore the U.S. defense-industrial base.
An agenda oriented around building would speak directly to the nation’s major macroeconomic and national security challenges, pocketbook issues like housing affordability and energy prices, and social concerns about who the past generation’s pattern of growth has left behind. It is also enormously powerful as a matter of raw political calculation, simultaneously uniting the various factions of the Republican Party and splitting Democrats down the middle.
A focus on building would include robust energy policy—both the traditional “drill, baby, drill” and a vision for 100 new nuclear reactors sprouting nationwide, which would do more for environmental quality and climate change than the past 20 years of Green-New-Deal nonsense. It would make the need for permitting reform concrete, make the case for aggressive infrastructure investment, and make the failures of blue-city governance undeniable. It would tackle the corruption and sclerosis of America’s outdated system of organized labor not with a threat of simply crushing it, but rather with a promise of the upside for workers that could accompany reform.
Instead of DOGE’s error-riddled list of fake savings from obscure, small-dollar contracts irrelevant to the ordinary American’s life, imagine a real-time scoreboard of major projects launched, permits approved, and jobs created in thousands of communities nationwide. Instead of the sleaze of a “Crypto Reserve,” imagine an infrastructure bank financed by a new Trump Bond, specifically for projects deemed in the national interest and granted accelerated approval by local authorities, used to crowd in an order of magnitude more private investment. Both the DOGE/crypto and rebuilding paths are entirely consistent with Trump’s stated views and the interests of his supporters; which path the administration follows is a choice.
2. We’re going to build in America.
Trump’s trade policy, which he has made a top priority, fits naturally under the auspices of a building agenda. Abundant energy and natural resources, a favorable regulatory environment, easy access to capital—these are the advantages that helped build the American industrial colossus, and that could provide the foundation for rebuilding it. But the other half of that equation, present in the American tradition and necessary today, is protection of the domestic market and favoritism for domestic producers.
The administration’s laser focus on restoring balanced trade and rewarding domestic investment is entirely to the good. But to succeed, that focus has to extend to execution. Building stronger supply chains requires not only decoupling from adversaries, but also closer partnerships with allies. Bringing domestic supply online requires predictable and permanent changes in policy. Maintaining political support requires communicating the plan to the public clearly, with both its costs and benefits, and then proceeding in a way that minimizes the costs.
Trump clearly enjoys keeping everyone off-balance through what he seems to consider one long negotiation, but that strategy will yield diminishing marginal returns and rapidly escalating costs. He has four years to transition to a new model for American engagement in the global economy that has public support and industrial momentum. Moving credibly and methodically in that direction is likely to prompt domestic investment much faster than quick and unpredictable action that cannot be planned for and seems unlikely to stick.
Again, this is what Trump said he wanted to do. On the campaign trail and in the Republican platform, he called for revoking Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and imposing tariffs of up to 60% on imports from there, and then imposing a global tariff of 10% to 20%, all of which requires Congress to act. Trump should announce that those are his priorities, he wants both passed this year, and that tariffs will gradually increase from their current levels to those targeted ones by 2028. He can proceed in parallel with investigations of unfair trade practices and higher reciprocal tariffs via executive action, aiming to establish methodology and targets over the next six months (which is how long it will take regardless) and to then impose tariffs over the subsequent six months if other countries do not begin taking remedial actions.
3. We’re going to build American skills.
To some extent, people may understand intuitively that building will benefit American workers. But Trump should also make that linkage intentional and explicit by buttressing his agenda with an emphasis on education reform and workforce training. In American Compass polling, this consistently scores as the most popular area for focus, across the political spectrum. And it is entirely consistent with the president’s stated priorities.
Everyone can see the administration’s gleeful and generally warranted attacks on the nation’s wasteful and failed system of higher education. But while embarrassing and defunding universities may be a satisfying and effective way to wage a culture war, on its own it does little for ordinary Americans. The far more compelling and productive approach is to combine the negative with a positive, talking about the kinds of non-college pathways and on-the-job training in which the United States should be investing instead.
The Wall Street Journal had a wonderful feature over the weekend on “The Schools Reviving Shop Class,” which notes not only the promise, but also the expense of providing the kind of education and training that would benefit a substantial share of students and prepare them for the kinds of work the economy will need. (Hint: not comparative literature classes.) One reason schools don’t do more technical education and vocational training is that it is hard. The facilities are more expensive. The teachers are more expensive.
Serious question: how many groundbreakings for new state-of-the-art high schools would Trump like to attend, hard hat on, as blue-state education leaders take turns stepping up to the podium to thank him for helping to better serve the disadvantaged students in their communities? He should try and take half of the more than $200 billion per year spent subsidizing traditional higher education and make it available instead to communities and corporations building non-college pathways. His vice president is already the co-sponsor of a bill that would dramatically expand on-the-job training along these lines.
4. We’re going to cut taxes for our builders.
And finally, yes, we can talk about tax cuts. Framed within a building agenda, Trump could put forward a coherent fiscal framework that emphasizes the tax cuts he cares about most—even the “no tax on tips,” if he wants. He could make permanent his first-term cuts for working families, the low corporate tax rate for domestic producers, and the favorable treatment for capital expenditures. He could restore favorable treatment for research and development. He could actually pay for this with the tariffs that he wants to impose, a new tax on major university endowments, and a higher corporate rate for other firms. He has already expressed support for raising taxes on Wall Street financiers by closing the carried interest deduction, and for taxing manufacturers at a lower rate than other corporations.
If there is a stretch here, it is in accepting that the tax cuts for high-income households should be allowed to expire. Is it plausible that Trump the populist could deliver a message that “I don’t need a tax cut, we’re giving tax cuts to the people who need them”? It’s not implausible, though admittedly also it is not in evidence as something he has considered. But recall, this was the compromise struck when the Bush tax cuts were expiring—at the time, Speaker of the House John Boehner even floated a higher tax bracket for incomes above $1 million. Steve Bannon has argued Trump’s agenda necessitates higher taxes on the wealthy.
A more targeted tax cut would also provide the necessary political prerequisite if Trump is serious about reducing the size of government with more than performative sound and fury. Making significant spending cuts for the sake of even bigger tax cuts for high-income households that on balance leave the deficit even larger than before is obviously not going to work. Actually raising some revenue and cutting some spending would be a landmark accomplishment, and as Greg Ip noted in the Journal over the weekend, any steps toward fiscal balance will be important to bringing trade back into balance as well.
Is any of this what Trump will talk about tomorrow night? No, probably not. But the point is that he could.
A lot of times criticism of Trump comes down to, “I don’t like him and I think he’s wrong.” That’s fine as criticism, but it’s what I call Joey Advice. You know the scene:
Ross: You should’ve seen the look on her face. I don’t want Rachel to hate me! I don’t know what to do.
Joey: You want my advice?
Ross: Yes! Please!
Joey: You’re not gonna like it.
Ross: That’s okay.
Joey: You got married too fast.
Ross: That’s not advice!
Joey: I told ya.
Don’t give Joey Advice.
But if Trump and his team choose not to pursue their own stated priorities in effective ways that are likely to garner political support and generate tangible results, they will have only themselves to blame. Yes, the media is often unfair. Yes, the Democrats and the bureaucracies will seek to undermine. But those are givens for which a plan must account. If a plan fails because of those challenges, it was a bad plan.
Trump himself does not have to be the messenger here. One of the real successes in his first month has been in appointing a team aligned with his vision and capable of carrying it forward. Vice President JD Vance was of course in place first, followed shortly thereafter by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Economic advisers Scott Bessent and Stephen Miran get it. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as former USTR Robert Lighthizer’s chief of staff.
If Trump wants to focus on owning the libs while Vance presents the plan to reindustrialize and retrain, Rubio and Greer explain the reordering of the global economy, and Bessent and Miran pursue fiscal sanity, that works just fine. As long as there actually is a plan. It doesn’t take a political savant to note that if you’re talking more about cryptocurrency than housing and eggs, you may be doing it wrong.
The clock is ticking on cabinet meetings dedicated to Elon Musk and his island of misfit boys.
- Oren
Lmao I love how every right wing think piece is now literal Trump fantasy fiction.
“Listen if his entire brain were to change, here’s why it would be great!”
I'm unsubscribing. I really thought your think tank was onto something. I'm an independent Mainer (a mindset this country needs much more of) and relished reading anything that promised to be open arms to the merits of the arguments. At first you treaded lightly on the politics and stayed on point about the economic merits of arguments - something anyone could get behind.
I came for the well-thought out discussions. I had high hopes that this would morph into a new type of think tank that steered clear of all of the distractions. It doesn't seem that is the case anymore. It's a shame, because you're speaking to both the center-left and center-right in your arguments and it's widely agreed that we need much more of this and much less hyper-partisanship.
So it's baffling why your institution would subscribe more and more to a partisan approach. At the beginning it seemed that you were going to be a institution, while nominally conservative, that could speak sanity to both parties. I tune out when the partisanship starts infringing on the merits of the arguments, and lately there's just too much going out of the way to throw some conservative red meat into posts, and you just lose me when you go down this path.
And if you really want to see progress on any of the ideas that you advocate for, you would actually focus on converting intelligent members of both parties instead of just the center-right.