I spent the day in Washington yesterday. The city is roiled by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, where the Democrats are disgracing themselves with fantastical assertions against a superb, mainstream jurist. Beyond the Kavanaugh hearing, the city’s main obsession is an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times by a person who may or may not exist and may or may not be a senior executive branch official. The gist of the op-ed is that President Trump has a mercurial personality.
I was in D.C. to testify before the Joint Economic Committee on the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on Minnesota’s economy. Those effects have been magnificently positive, as they have been on the national economy. Among other things, I showed the committee charts that document the Act’s impact on jobs and wages in Minnesota. This one shows the seasonally adjusted net change in employment in Minnesota. The positive impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is obvious:
This chart shows average hourly earnings for Minnesota’s private sector employees, seasonally adjusted. After stagnating during the second half of 2017, wage growth took off after passage of the Act:
Just this morning, the Labor Department announced more great news:
American wages unexpectedly…
Unexpectedly!
…climbed in August by the most since the recession ended in 2009 and hiring rose by more than forecast, keeping the Federal Reserve on track to lift interest rates this month and making another hike in December more likely.
Average hourly earnings for private workers increased 2.9 percent from a year earlier, a Labor Department report showed Friday, exceeding all estimates in a Bloomberg survey and the median projection for 2.7 percent. Nonfarm payrolls rose 201,000 from the prior month, topping the median forecast for 190,000 jobs.
This is reality. The Democrats’ clown show is fantasy. Fortunately, most people care more about reality than fantasy. Still, both confusing the facts and distracting people from them are tactics at which the Left excels.
A Democratic Congress never would have passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In fact, not a single Democrat voted for it. And Hillary Clinton never would have signed it. The progress the U.S. economy has made since Donald Trump took the helm from the hapless Barack Obama is an ongoing rebuke to the Democrats’ anti-growth policies. This is one reason the Democrats are so anxious to regain control over the House in November. With the House in Democrat hands, they won’t be able to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but they will be able to guarantee that no more pro-growth, pro-worker legislation will be enacted. They will focus on impeaching President Trump instead.
In other words, if they get their way, fantasy will triumph over reality.
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