Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Evaluating Trump’s first ‘Hundred Day’ economic plan
Evaluating Trump’s first ‘Hundred Day’ economic plan
Apr 26, 2026 6:29 AM

In a radio address on July 24, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the 100-day session of the 73rd United States Congress between March 9 and June 17, a session thatproduced a record-breaking volume of new laws.

Despite the fact that the 100 days referred to a legislative session and not the beginning of a presidency, the term has e a metric for what a new president can plish and how effective they will be during their term. For this reason, president-elects often lay out a proposal for what they hope to plish during the early days after the Inauguration.

During a speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania last October, Donald Trumplaid out his own planfor what he’d do in his first days.

Below is a summary of all the actions related to economics that Trump promised to tackle in his Hundred Days and an evaluation of what he actually plished:

EXECUTIVE ACTIONS

The following are actions Trump said he would take either through the executive orders or through the other powers of his office:

Promise: Issue a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.

Evaluation: Promise kept. Ten days after taking office the president signed an executive order titled, “Reducing Regulation And Controlling Regulatory Costs.”One of the provisions of the order is that whenever an executive department or agency publicly proposes for notice ment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it must identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed.

Promise: Announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205.

Evaluation: Promise deferred. According to Trump, he was all set to announce his intent to renegotiate NAFTA—and then had his mind changed by phone calls with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Promise: Announce that the United States will be withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Evaluation: Promise kept. Trump withdrew from the trade agreement three days after taking office.

Promise: Direct his Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.

Evaluation: Promise broken. “They’re not currency manipulators,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in April.

Promise: Direct his Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that “unfairly impact American workers” and direct them to use “every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately.”

Evaluation: Promise kept. In April Trump signed an executive order calling for pletion of a large-scale report to identify “every form of trade abuse and every non-reciprocal practice that now contributes to the U.S. trade deficit.”

Promise: Lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.

Evaluation: In process. Trump signed an executive order to that will begin rolling back some of the energy restriction put in place by President Obama.

Promise: Remove any obstacles to “vital energy infrastructure projects” (e.g., the Keystone Pipeline) so that the projects can move forward.

Evaluation: Promise kept. Four days after taking office Trump signed a memo clearing the way for construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Promise: Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure.

Evaluation: Pending. Trump included this in his proposed budget, but it’s unclear whether Congress will cancel the payments.

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS

The following are proposals for economic-related legislation that President Trump said he would send to Congress:

Promise: Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act— An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, bination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.

Evaluation: Partial credit. In an attempt to get something out before the Hundred Day deadline, the Trump administration released a one-page outline on tax reform. No detailed plan yet exists, though, and nothing has been sent to Congress.

Promise: End The Offshoring Act— Establishes tariffs to panies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.

Promise: American Energy & Infrastructure Act— Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.

Promise: School Choice And Education Opportunity Act— Redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. mon core, brings education supervision to munities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.

Promise: Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act— Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.

Evaluation: Promise deferred. Neither the Trump administration nor Republicans in Congress have a way to fully repeal Obamacare, and the current plan to make changes has been rejected by both Democrats and conservative Republicans.

Promise: Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act— Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for e families.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Audio: Jordan J. Ballor on the Economics of the Heidelberg Catechism
Did you miss Acton on Tap? You really shouldn’t miss Acton on Tap. That’s a bad idea. For instance, if you missed last night’s event, you passed up an opportunity to hear Jordan J. Ballor, Executive Editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality and author of Get Your Hands Dirty: Essays on Christian Social Thought (and Action), speak at San Chez Bistro in Grand Rapids, Michigan on the topic of the economics of the Heidelberg Catechism. He focused on...
Hollywood Hates The Economic System That Makes It Rich
John Stossel is fed up with celebrities whining about the very economic system that made them rich. From Russell Brand demanding redistribution of wealth to George Lucas decrying “capitalist democracy,” celebrities who are rolling in dough seem to be suffering from some sort of entrepreneurial guilt. Of course, they aren’t feeling guilty enough to ditch one of their seven planes (à la Harrison Ford) so as to lower their carbon foot print, but guilty enough to tell us that capitalism...
The Secret Ingredient for Effective Healthcare Reform
In today’s Acton Commentary I explore how our hyper-regulated and increasingly statist healthcare system is chasing off good physicians. A recent article in Forbes by Bruce Japsen provides some additional support for that argument: Doctor and nurse vacancies are approaching nearly 20 percent at hospitals as these facilities prepare to be inundated by millions of patients who have the ability to pay for medical care thanks to the Affordable Care Act. A survey by health care provider staffing firm AMN...
Free Book Giveaway: Part 1 of Kuyper’s ‘Common Grace’
Christian’s Library Presshas released the first in itsseries of English translationsof Abraham Kuyper’s most famous work,Common Grace, a three-volume work of practical public theology. This release,Noah-Adam, is the first of three parts in Volume 1: The Historical Section. To celebrate,CLP will be giving awaytwocopies of the book. To enter, use the interface below. There are three ways to enter, and each will increase your odds. The contest will end Friday night at 11:59 p.m. a Rafflecopter giveaway [product sku=”1422″] ...
Tea Party Catholic: Can Catholics Save the American Experiment?
Giovanni Patriarca recently sat down with Acton Research director, Samuel Gregg, to discuss his latest book, Tea Party Catholic. Patriarca, Acton’s 2012 Novak Award winner, began by asking Gregg what the “most alarming and peculiar aspects” are of America losing its “historical memory” and running the “risk of deconstruction of its own identity.” The American Founding was certainly influenced by certain streams of Enlightenment thought, not all of which (such as social contract theory) patible with Catholic faith. Yet as...
What Should a Pope Say About Capitalism?
Pope Francis’ ments about economics has raised concerns among conservatives and libertarians. But at National Review, James Pethokoukis says free marketeers shouldn’t take the critique so personally: If you are a free marketeer offended by Pope Francis’s Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) — in which he critiqued “deified” market capitalism and attacked e inequality — ask yourself: What should the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church say about economics in 2013? Should he take a victory lap over...
Inflation and the Minimum Wage
In yesterday’s edition of The Transom, which I highly mend, Ben Domenech included a discussion that places the debates over raising the minimum wage within the broader context of the effects of inflation more generally. Here’s a section: There shouldn’t be any debate about the reality of the problem that the costs of basic staples, health care, and higher education are chewing up ever-increasing portions of the median family budget which is, in inflation-adjusted terms, smaller than it’s been since...
Redeeming the DIA
mentators, apart from Virginia Postrel and the like, seem to think that it would be tragic for the city of Detroit to lose the art collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) in the city’s bankruptcy proceedings. I agree that liquidating or “monetizing” the collection and shipping the works off to parts unknown like the spare pieces on a totaled car would be tragic. But at the same time, there’s something about the relationship between the DIA collection and...
Why Max Weber was wrong about capitalism
Sociologist Max Weber famously associated Protestantism with capitalism. Although widely accepted by many, that claim is theologically dubious, empirically disprovable, and largely incidental, says Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg: Even when we consider modern capitalism’s emergence, a direct connection between this event and Protestantism is very open to question. The economic historian Jacques Delacroix, for instance, has highlighted many facts about this period that Weber’s theory simply cannot account for. “Amsterdam’s wealth,” Delacroix writes, “was centered on Catholic families; the...
Soccer, Swindling And Sex Trafficking: 10 Things To Know
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association is holding the World Cup in Brazil, June 2014.Six men have been arrested for fixing Premier League soccer matches.Earlier this month, two British men were arrested for fixing Australian soccer matches.Retired English striker Alan Shearer is calling for “zero tolerance” for fixing of soccer matches. Marcus Gayle, a former striker for Wimbledon, told BBC London regarding the fixing scandal: “I was disgusted that it is still around in the game.” The Minas Gerais state...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved