The stock market has provided the grease for President Trump to get the economy moving again. Now he needs to bring the muscle.
The Dow Jones index has rallied 2,360 points or 13 percent since the election in a very unloved rally.
If there isn’t some meat put on the economic bones relatively soon, the leaks coming out of Washington could be dwarfed by the leaks coming out of stock market indexes.
With each daily all-time high record in equities, the administration is losing an opportunity to realize the two goals Trump campaigned on: tax reform and regulatory rollback.
These two are powerful antidotes for what actually ails American workers. Remember, there have been thousands of small companies put out of business and millions of people laid off over the past eight years due to regulatory restraints and excessive taxation, plus skyrocketing health care costs.
I have confidence that Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin understand the fixes and the nuances that are needed to right the ship, and the markets seem to agree — for now.
However, aside from some very well-targeted executive orders, more work needs to be done if the administration wants to celebrate 21,000 and 25,000 on the Dow.
Getting the growth and risk impediments out of Dodd-Frank will be a huge coup for small businesses and the market.
A rapid reshaping or resizing of Dodd-Frank’s 2,700 pages needs to get passed. And rapid net tax cuts need to happen.
You can’t reform Washington in one gargantuan tax bill, and you probably can’t rewrite Dodd-Frank in one either.
The president and his administration need to start hitting singles and doubles. Swinging for the fences is too economically idealistic for Washington.
Cutting corporate tax rates, enacting repatriation tax reform, abolishing the Volcker Rule and removing lending restraints buried deep in the bowels of Dodd-Frank will allow for the growth to come on sooner and build some momentum to keep the markets moving forward without having an unwelcome pause.
The markets are counting on it, and so is the American worker.
There is no time like the present, Mr. President.
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