VOICES: President Trump made a lasting impact on America with successes

Note from Community Impact Editor Amelia Robinson: This guest opinion column by Rob Scott, a Kettering city councilman, appeared on the Ideas and Voices page Sunday, Jan. 17. Other pieces printed that day are linked below.

As President Trump’s presidential term comes to a close and the transition occurs into a Biden administration, there are many successes to be claimed.

As a senior level member of the Trump campaign starting in 2015, I witnessed how then candidate Donald Trump was able to utilize social media and a massive grassroots army to win the Republican nomination and ultimately the presidency.

He changed the federal judiciary like no other president before him with the appointments of three U.S. Supreme Court justices and 220 federal judges who will serve lifetime appointments.

The president passed the historic Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 behind the stock market’s boom over the past four years. The law took corporation tax from 35 percent to 21 percent in a simplification plan.

Trump fulfilled a key promise by renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and replacing it with a new deal, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement last year after two years of negotiations between the three nations over a deal touching on $1 trillion of trade.

Wall Street and retail investors have benefited from major market rallies. The COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic shutdown measures across the country made key indices take a big hit, but even through that, markets bounced back to pre-pandemic levels.

Trump championed efforts on the First Step Act, widely hailed as the most meaningful criminal justice reform in a generation. It included necessary reforms to our justice system, improves our prison system and prepares inmates for reentry into their communities.

The law allows offenders sentenced under racially motivated mandatory minimums to petition for their cases to be reevaluated. Through this work, he was awarded the 2019 Bipartisan Justice Award by the nonprofit 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center for his “ability to work across the aisle.”

Trump prioritized our veterans with many initiatives to support our military as they return home and transition back home. He signed into law the V.A. MISSION Act, which increased choice and put a focus on providing quality care for veterans.

In addition, he created a White House VA hotline, secured record funding for mental health services with a goal of ending veteran suicides, created the PREVENTS initiative, signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act authorizing billions of additional funds for the Veterans Choice Program, launched the Veterans Affairs Access & Quality Tool allowing vets to access wait time and quality of care data and eliminated 100 percent of student load debt for permanently disabled veterans.

Internationally, the White House hosted the signing of a historic, U.S.-brokered peace deal between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, opening up opportunities for trade and travel between the nations.

In May, Trump told Americans that there would be a vaccination for the COVID-19 and he delivered with the first vaccinations being administered in November and December 2020. He worked with the bipartisan Congress to push out relief for Americans including student loan relief, the Payroll Protection Program for business owners and a moratorium on rent.

President Donald J. Trump has made long lasting positive impacts and spent the past four years putting America first.


Robert Scott, a Kettering city councilman, serves as the regional administrator for the Great Lakes Region of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Montgomery County Republican Party on Thursday selected him as the next Kettering Municipal Clerk of Courts. Guest columns are submitted  or requested fact-based opinion pieces typically of 300 to 450 words..

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