Let’s keep America’s economic winning streak going | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Leaders in the Democratic Party want to reverse tax cuts and raise taxes on Americans. Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced a bill recently to do just this. This would amount to an economic own goal worse than any at the World Cup.

    On the jobs front, unemployment is now at 3.8 percent. That’s tied for the lowest figure in 50 years. And with record lows being notched for adult men and women, as well as Asian, Black, and Hispanic Americans, analysts expect total unemployment to drop even further this year and on into the next.

    Wages? In the first quarter of 2018, experts tallied a 15 percent increase in the growth of after-tax incomes over the previous four month span. On average, hourly wages are beating expectations at a 3 percent rate of growth. With worker benefits like leave, education, and health coverage increasing in tandem, economists anticipate wages will continue to rise higher through the rest of this year as growth swells.

    Sure enough, experts keep revising their growth estimates upward. This spring alone, expansion could top 5 percent, to a level unseen in some 15 years. “A year ago,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin recently observed, “people were laughing when we talked about 3 percent GDP” as a pre-tax cut goal. Now, he rightly underscored, low-tax and low-regulation economic policies in Washington have gotten the job done.

    In North Carolina, unemployment is at 4.3 percent. Tech openings in the Research Triangle are 50 percent higher than they were last year, and payroll is up by five figures across trade, transport, and services.

    This year's tax cuts are partially responsible for this strong economy, adding fuel to the economy in the form of allowing businesses and individuals to keep more of their own money to spend and invest. Charlotte-based Bank of America recently released a survey finding that most small business respondents called the tax cuts a "game changer." Given that small businesses drive the economy, creating two-thirds of new jobs and most of the innovations that improve our lives, this is an important finding.

    But when you look at the new tax code, you can understand why they are so optimistic. The tax cuts that took effect this year offer small businesses a new 20 percent small business tax deduction. This amounts to the biggest small business tax cut in the country's history. With their added income, small businesses can raise wages, hire, and expand.

    In addition to more jobs, higher wages, and business growth, today’s tax cuts have additional laudable “knock-on” effects, as economists term the reverberating consequences. Analysts now estimate, for instance, that tax savings have driven charitable donations of over $15 billion to date; over 80 million Americans, to take another striking example, will pay lower energy bills as utilities pass tax savings on to consumers.

    To put it in sports terms again, these are big plays with big payoffs—and we’re only halfway into the first year under the new tax code. Americans know it, too. Polls show voters feel confident and in control, with most approving of our economic course, approving of the administration’s jobs policies, and satisfied with their opportunity to get ahead these days. More of us say America is on the right track than at any time during the last administration.

    That's why it's so important to cement these gains by making permanent the tax cuts that are fueling them. While the U.S. may not have qualified for the World Cup, its tax policies make it the world champion on the economic stage.

    Scott Crosbie is the president of Artisan Signs in Cornelius, North Carolina.