Michigan Chamber Discussion

Due to the Government shutdown of January 2018 my responses may be a bit slower than usual and it will be delivered without any required warnings concerning consumption and removal of all related tags.

1.)What is going to happen in Trump 2.0? The real question is what has this President learned during his first year in the Oval Office.

a.)He has found ways to make a deal work- The Tax and Jobs Act of 2017 shows the President has found a way to make a deal in spite of the swamp.

b.)He continues to plow through and remove regulations at a pace of 22:1, which is truly unprecedented.

c.)He has buoyed confidence in an economy that is poised to take off to places not seen since the mid-1980’s and that is growth that could hit 4, 5 or 6 percent annually.

2.)Will the Democrats run over Trump in the mid-term elections?

a.)It’s possible that the Dems could pick up 25-35 seats in the House fueled in large part by the #MeToo movement. This is not as big of a deal as CNN, NYT, WaPo and others will try to convince you however. In fact the biggest losses in modern history occurred under Barack Obama. The Media ignored those dramatic losses almost completely.

b.)The House switching however is not a forgone conclusion at least not to me. Remember just about every media outlet got it wrong, very wrong in 2016 and told us Hillary Clinton would easily win the Presidency. We are all quite clear on how that actually ended.

c.)The Senate will be a different story. Five Democrats voted to keep the Government open on Friday: Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Doug Jones of Alabama, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. This should be a big red flag for Democrats deluding themselves with the notion they will take control of the upper chamber. In fact if the economy continues to hum the way it is Republicans could get very close to getting magical number of 60 seats in the Senate. Because other states will be in play including Michigan, Montana, Wisconsin and now Minnesota.

d.)Trump could still lose it all if Mueller can pin some real dirt on him that doesn’t have to do with finances and previous business deals or even porn stars; but rather direct verifiable evidence of working with Russians to impact the elections of 2016. If that happens all bets are off. Anything else in my opinion will not swing the election to the left. If the election were held today I believe The House GOP would shed about 20 seats to the Democrats and in the Senate the GOP would pick up 3 to 5 seats.

3.)The economy is running hot but will that continue through 2018? What will it take to keep it going into 2019?

a.)I talk to many in business and many in politics and for the most part most are very optimistic about 2018. A construction boom is what many are looking at in the coming year. Look at all the cranes in Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor and yes the UP as well.

b.)Among those running for Governor, Bill Schuette continues to hammer the theme of cutting taxes here in Michigan as well. He is also talking about cutting regulations. He has also been endorsed by President Trump and will that help or hurt.

Well my answer to that is the same as a lot of questions I hear, which is I cannot say at this point what could happen between here and November. With the volatility of this political environment I can’t predict what might happen tomorrow so guessing all the way to November is a bit silly I’d say.