Donald Trump’s schemes to juice the economy

Feb 15th 2026|Washington, DC|5 min read

Donald Trump knows well that American voters tend not to reward subtlety. But in one respect the president, during his first term in office, managed to hide his light under a bushel. Republicans often gripe that the bumper tax cuts they implemented then did little to prevent an electoral drubbing at the midterms in 2018. This was because, though cumulatively large, the tax cuts arrived in dribs and drabs, and voters barely seemed to notice. Again and again, Republicans insisted that “the proof is in the paycheque”, to little avail. Even Paul Ryan, then speaker of the House of Representatives and a chief architect of the cuts, failed to communicate their scale: he found himself pointing to piddling tweaks that would barely have covered a year’s membership at Costco, a popular superstore.