first-year president dating back to eisenhower. is they han half as many bills as clinton and george hartsfield-jackson w. bush did at this point. this decide controlling both houses of congress. trump has one major solitary achievement, the gop tax bill designed to primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations which is polling at 24%, making it more unpopular than tax hikes under bill clinton and george h.w. bush. that tax bill that trump just signed was supposed to simplify the tax code and make paying your taxes much easier. most people, its proponents promised, would be able to file their taxes on a post card. instead, experts say the gop made the tax code more complicated and confusion reigns. many americans spent their holiday rushing to prepay their 2018 property taxes before the new rules go into effect, even though the irs clarified yesterday, sort of, saying that many will not actually benefit from doing so. for this, as for so many things,
congressman charlie dent, thanks to both of you, have a great new year. msnbc contributor kimberly atkins, chief washington reporter and columnist for the boston herald. charlie pierce, writer at large for esquire. one of the things i think happened was so many people were caught unawares by trump s win, there has been i think a tendency to overcorrect a little bit. and sort of view trump as a sort of political magician whose magic is not appreciated by the press but is appreciated by the people in sort of opposition to the evidence. where do you think things stand right now, kimberly? i think right now we are seeing the result of both the movement that led to donald trump to win, and the resistance as you re talking about sort of coming out equally and sort of pushing against each other for an entire year now. donald trump has racked up some wins, including this tax bill. but a lot of the agenda items
atkins, chief washington reporter and columnist for the boston herald. charlie pierce, writer at large for esquire. one of the things i think happened was so many people were caught unawares by trump s win, there has been i think a tendency to overcorrect a little bit. and sort of view trump as a sort of political magician whose magic is not appreciated by the press but is appreciated by the people in sort of opposition to the evidence. where do you think things stand right now, kimberly? i think right now we are seeing the result of both the movement that led to donald trump to win, and the resistance as you re talking about sort of coming out equally and sort of pushing against each other for an entire year now. donald trump has racked up some wins, including this tax bill. but a lot of the agenda items which he has not been able to really realize has been because
which the majority of the country does not like. right. i think the other important point to remember is that donald trump may be su generis as a political figure, but what he s been enacting is simply the republican wish list ever since 1980. yep. and, i mean, there s there is no question, when you look at what they did with the tax bill, when you look at demolishing regulatory agencies basically by appointing people who hate them, i mean, that goes back to reagan. james watt and ann gorsuch. he s governing as the president people thought reagan was going to be. i don t know how much of that is him and how much of that is opportunism on the part of a very united republican congress. kimberly, that s a key point. i always thought if trump were elected we d basically get a president pence in terms of
yet another all-time high. three white house officials told politico they plan to use the economy as a centerpiece of the white house s political message in 2018, even though hard economic data on growth, job creation and wages look very similar to the years under president obama, in fact, the pace of job growth has slowed slightly. it is true that the rich are making off like bandits, unquestionably. after passing the tax bill the president told his wealthy friends, you all just got a lot richer. and the world s 500 wealthiest people became $1 trillion richer in 2017. that is cold comfort for everyone else. a recent poll found just 20% of people believe they re better off under trump, 33% say their situation has gotten worse. more than half the public, 52%, say the country as a whole is worse off since trump took office. this speaks to a simple fact. donald trump right now is in historically unpopular president. heading into the christmas holiday, trump had the worst