LARRY KUDLOW: Share your economic optimism, Mr. President

President Trump will address the nation tonight with a very important speech. I sincerely hope he looks forward more than backward. What do I mean by that? He has a fabulous list of achievements in his first year. Most notably, closing the border and stopping illegal immigration. Passage of the one big, beautiful bill, with its pro-growth supply side tax cuts, deregulation, drill, baby, drill, as well as other elements. This was a major achievement.

Virtually single handedly, he has changed the culture by pushing back all the woke nonsense and replacing it with traditional values. And most especially restoring God and religion. He has also signed over 200 executive orders, and for my money, the most important of them, got rid of the Joe Biden far left Green New Deal, climate change existential threat, nonsense. He has also used his pen to deregulate many parts of the economy. And bolstered the development of AI. He has developed a strong framework of peace in the Middle East. And, of course, he’s still working on Russia and Ukraine. I think it’s a fabulous year one record. And I’m leaving out many other positive executive orders, including national security.

But my point about looking forward is that I’d like to see three-quarters of the speech predicting a fabulously optimistic economic outlook. And leave just one quarter for the first year achievements. If people disagree with me on this, including major Trump supporters, I understand, presidential speeches always have some difficulties figuring out how to prioritize their key points.

I have supported Mr. Trump on virtually everything he’s done, including his controversial reciprocal free and fair trade policy. But I think he’s spot on there too. And there was never a 1930s type trade war retaliation. And the President’s making good deals all around the world. And he’s making a couple of $100 billion in tariff revenues.

But I also want him to tell folks how great the economy is going to be next year and beyond. We’re already in something of a business boom from the tax cuts, and the 100% cost expensing. Factories are being built. That means more hiring, higher wages, and bigger take-home pay so people sitting around kitchen tables will have big smiles on their faces.

His drill, baby, drill has already caused a virtual collapse of oil prices and gasoline prices are falling down. That means lower costs for hundreds of sectors in the economy. That also means the inflation rate is going to drop, could be several percentage points, and interest rates will follow inflation lower. That means the economy will be so much growth-ier for all segments of the population, you could get 5% GDP with virtually no inflation.

Home prices and shelters are already moderating. Mortgage rates are coming down. I’d like Mr. Trump to share his vision that reimagines American capitalism as a growth machine. Attracting trillions of dollars from around the world because, yes, America is the hottest place in the world.

You know what? This is the Christmas season, and we could all use a boost in morale. Mr. Trump is a great economic optimist. And I hope he would share that thought at some length with the rest of the country and for that matter, the rest of the world.