The media loves to talk about scandals, Russia, and President Trump’s Twitter feed. Yet, it doesn’t talk about the issues that matter to most Americans – the economy and national security.

This new year of 2018 will be great for American taxpayers and for the national security of our nation. President Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory relief have already proven to be jet fuel to the economy, and his tough talk on North Korea and Iran has proven that the old adage, “Peace through strength,” is still a very important foreign policy strategy. President Trump is going to make America even greater this year.

{mosads}The economy is booming under President Trump. The president is considered a business-friendly leader as opposed to the leaders of the past who were from the political, not the business, world. When President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, he completed a promise to cut taxes on all Americans while reforming the corporate tax structure in a way that will keep corporations from fleeing to low-tax nations and creating a business climate that will result in massive job growth.  

Don’t believe the fake-news spin that this is not a tax cut for middle-class Americans. On Dec. 22,  President Trump said of his tax plan: “$3.2 trillion in tax cuts for American families, including the doubling of the standard deduction and the doubling of the Child Tax Credit.

The typical family of four earning $75,000 will see an income tax cut of more than $2,000 — many much higher than that — slashing their tax bill in half.” This tax plan helps all taxpayers, yet the media ignores that taxpayers are also consumers and workers. This year will see even higher wages and cheaper goods and services for American consumers.

On the regulatory side, Trump’s repeal of Obama-era regulations and his imposition of a freeze on increasing regulatory costs has reduced a hidden tax on economic growth. According to Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), “the president also issued during his first 100 days a series of executive actions related to reforming the regulatory process, in particular Executive Order 13771, Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs, and Executive Order 13777, Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda. The first established the one-in, two-out expectation for certain economically significant rules where not in violation of law.”  

Crews further described the executive order as directing that “total incremental cost of all new regulations, including repealed regulations, to be finalized this year shall be no greater than zero” for the Trump administration’s agencies and departments. Congress and President Trump also used the Congressional Review Act to squash 14 rules issued by President Obama. Reducing and repealing Obama-issued costly job-killing regulations have helped to expand economic opportunity. Expect President Trump to push for even more regulatory reform this year.

The economic numbers prove that Trump’s policies have been a success. According to White House figures, “under President Trump, nearly 1.7 million new jobs have been created.” This number includes 159,000 jobs in manufacturing and 57,000 jobs in mining and logging.

Again, according to administration-provided statistics, the “unemployment rate has fallen to 4.1 percent, the lowest in nearly 17 years,” and “the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United States has grown by more than 3 percent in the last two quarters.” These numbers show that, under President Trump, the economy is expected to grow even more this year, with more Americans securing jobs.

America is safe with the Trump Doctrine on foreign policy being implemented. When Mr. Trump was a candidate, he voiced opposition to an “America Last” foreign policy that put the interests of other nations before the United States. Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama engaged in nation-building policies that spent trillions overseas, instead of spending those American tax dollars at home building our infrastructure.

On Dec. 18, the president announced four pillars of national security to be “protect the homeland; promote American prosperity; preserve peace through strength; and, advance American influence.” President Trump calls his foreign policy “principled realism” that pushes American principles as a means to peace.

Expect these principles to be applied to threats coming from North Korea and an unstable Iran. The president’s announcement that he is studying the idea of cutting U.S. taxpayer money being shipped to Pakistan shows that we can expect him to hold countries accountable if they receive U.S. aid, yet don’t do enough to stop terrorism.

As a former campaign manager for Donald Trump, I am confident that 2018 will be even greater than 2017. With the economy projected to grow with continued expansion and peace at home, expect the American people to reward President Trump with higher approval ratings and more votes for Republican candidates this fall.

Corey R. Lewandowski was campaign manager for Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and is co-author, with David Bossie, of the book, “Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of his Rise to the Presidency.” Follow him on Twitter @CLewandowski