The American story is one of resilient comebacks. And as we celebrate our 250th year as a nation under the leadership of President Donald Trump, we’re witnessing perhaps the greatest comeback of them all–especially for Main Street USA.
As the president illustrated last night at his State of the Union address, America is awakening from a years-long winter of managed decline under the heavy hand of big government. Today, we’re glimpsing the rekindled lights of our nation’s greatness on the horizon by putting America First–and reigniting the free enterprise system that powers opportunity.
During the Biden administration, the flame of our nation’s towering economic strength, rooted in capitalism and exceptionalism, was nearly extinguished. Under the crushing weight of Bidenomics and socialist welfare policies, massive inflation, red tape, bad trade deals, and a growing bureaucracy, families and small businesses faced devastating setbacks in earnings, savings, and homeownership.
Wasteful government spending drove consumer prices to forty-year highs. Green New Deal regulations added $6 trillion in new costs for households and business owners. Unfair trade deals shuttered thousands of factories and made us dependent on adversaries. Stark images of fraudsters receiving billions in taxpayer benefits only added insult to injury for every American job creator, worker, and family who was left behind.
In just over twelve months, Trump has restored confidence and opportunity to Main Street with a common-sense economic agenda designed to put hardworking families and small businesses–not Washington bureaucrats, illegal aliens, or coastal elites–in the driver’s seat.
Four years of broken policies won’t dissipate overnight. But with pro-worker, pro-growth incentives like tax cuts, deregulation, and fair trade, Main Street business owners are beginning to hire, expand, and invest again. These are the early rays of light dawning for workers and communities across America.
The data speaks for itself. Despite the continuous mainstream media doomcasting, core inflation has reached its lowest level in nearly five years. In the last three months of 2025,
the average rate was just 1.7%–compared to the average 5% during the last administration.
As importantly, wages are finally rising faster than inflation and interest rates have come down. In President Trump’s first year, real earnings outpaced inflation by nearly $1,400.
American families and workers have more money in their pockets with higher hourly earnings and lower prices.
Job growth is accelerating where it matters most–in the private sector. The economy added 172,000 new private-sector jobs in January, particularly in construction and specialty trade jobs. Growth is coming from the builders, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, and innovators–not bureaucratic expansion.
The America First agenda is also restoring industrial strength. With $18 trillion in outside investment commitments secured by Trump thanks to fair trade and tax incentives, manufacturing activity expanded at its fastest pace since 2022. More businesses are building and producing domestically–lowering prices, securing our supply chains, and restoring Made in America.
Growth is driving the comeback on Main Street. Small business sales recently hit a six month high and small business optimism remains above the 52-year average. Over 70% of small business owners expect higher revenues this year, 55% plan to create new jobs, and over half say that Working Family Tax Cuts will materially boost their business and growth projections.
These historic tax cuts represent the next chapter of our nation’s economic turnaround, with long-term incentives designed to break job creators free from the clutches of socialist government and empower the private sector–kickstarting the engine of free enterprise that creates jobs, drives expansion, and promises generational wealth.
The Working Family Tax Cuts make the 20% small business pass-through deduction permanent, generating an estimated $750 billion in economic activity and supporting over one million new jobs.
It allows full expensing for factories, equipment, and research and development – accelerating domestic production. It substantially eliminates taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits, boosting take-home pay by thousands of dollars per year for millions of Americans. It strengthens health savings accounts, expands childcare access, and creates new Trump Accounts, Workforce Pell Grants, and 529 plans.
Families and workers are just beginning to see their largest tax refunds in history. Small businesses are hiring, expanding, and investing again when just a couple of years ago they were cutting shifts and closing shop.
Last week at an event with Trump in Georgia, Coosa Steel owner Andrew Saville thanked him for the tariffs and tax cuts that saved his business: “Your first term, we saw some things come back just a little bit here and there. The second term, about July, the quotes, the orders … I couldn’t keep up. They were coming nonstop.”
There is more work to do to right the world’s largest economy, but the facts are undeniable: the America First economic agenda is working for U.S. workers and job creators. The ship is no longer foundering under the weight of Democrat socialist policies; under Trump, the forecast for Main Streets across America is a new Golden Age, and it is just beginning to dawn.
As Trump highlighted last night, the State of our union is finally strong again, and the best is yet to come.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
