LARRY KUDLOW: High growth, low inflation and Trump’s golden age

The day after the election, the stock market went up 1,500 points — one of its best days in history. It’s kind of like saying, “Welcome home, President Trump. We’re glad you’re back!”  

The market is surely welcoming Mr. Trump’s tax cut plans, along with his deregulation rollback of the $2 trillion of new regs put on by the Biden-Harris administration. 

Included in Trump’s deregulation plan will be permitting reform, to not only unlock the fossil fuel spigots and produce more liquid gold, but also to open the door to pipelines, fracking and drilling in Alaska, New Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico.  

Plus, reopening LNG exports and permitting new LNG modernization and terminals. The stock market welcome mat for President Trump is also a vote of confidence that big government socialism is dead; radical woke and climate policies are dead; radical, affirmative DEI policies are dead. All those left-wing obsessions were affecting both large and small businesses.  

FED’S FAVORED INFLATION GAUGE SHOWED PRICE GROWTH CONTINUED TO SLOW IN SEPTEMBER 

They were affecting construction projects, broadband projects and even advanced technology companies. Whether they be chips, or quantum computing, or AI, because you couldn’t build anything unless you met various woke and DEI government mandates. 

Or the SEC spewing out insane climate reporting mandates for all businesses and their consumers.  

It’s like the securities regulators decided they really were the Weather Channel. There’s a good chance there will be some bank deregulations — such as lower capital standards, or at least no higher capital requirements for an industry which is mostly over-capitalized right now. 

Then you have the Elon Musk phenomenon. He’s the smartest guy on the planet. Lately, he has become a political celebrity rock star, jumping in full-time to help Mr. Trump get elected president.  

Elon is already working with the Trump transition committee to pull out roughly $2 trillion of wasteful and unnecessary federal spending in order to slam the brakes on budget deficit spending and debt creation. 

Crazy programs like the COVID Act of 2021, or the various CHIPS and infrastructure bailout bills, or the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” — all sponsored by Democrats and passed with Kamala’s tie-breaking vote — should be subject to a thoroughgoing audit.  

Many of those programs have been authorized by the Democratic Congress, but the money hasn’t even been spent. In part, because the government is so inept, and in part because of the crazy DEI regulations.  

Anyway, unspent funds should be rescinded, and that would put a big clamp on federal spending. Meanwhile, the extended business tax cuts — oh and let’s not forget a 15% corporate rate for domestic products — that’s going to increase economic growth and job creation, which will move the GDP needle to perhaps 3-4%. 

Thereby, producing plenty of additional revenues from folks who have new incentives to work and invest, and all that will lower the budget deficits even more. Growth solves deficits and debt. 

Some on Wall Street continue to talk about how tariffs are inflationary, but Mr. Trump in his first term slammed China with huge tariffs on the indictment of unfair trading and intellectual property theft. 

Yet, there was virtually no inflation. So let me get this right… In his first term, Mr. Trump slashed taxes, curbed regulations, protected America from unfair trading practices, and the overall CPI increased only 7% for four years, which was 1.4% at an annual rate. 

Biden-Harris, on the other hand, kept the Trump tariffs, but spent their way into kingdom come, producing record deficits and debt, opened the floodgates to illegal immigration, and their CPI increased 21% — or roughly 6% at an annual rate. 

So, I ask you, folks: who is the inflationist? As a final Trump policy, again and again, he repeats that he wants the dollar to remain the world’s reserve currency.  

He’s basically backing king dollar, and that can never be inflationary, and that’s why the stock market put out a record-breaking welcome mat for Mr. Trump the day after his landslide election. That’s the riff. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the Nov. 7, 2024, edition of “Kudlow.”