Good morning.
With Republicans winning control of the House, President-elect Donald Trump will be heading to Washington with a clear path for enacting his agenda.
Among Trump's top priorities for business will be reducing regulation and taxes. Extending the consumer tax cuts that are due to expire next year would reduce revenue by $4 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But Trump’s former economic advisor—and current IBM vice-chair—Gary Cohn argues the improved business environment will stimulate investment and economic growth.
Many of those CEOs who want to invest will face pressure to invest in areas like manufacturing, which will require changes on the ground. As Cohn told our Fortune Global Forum panel on change in business, the challenge will be getting “help at the state and local level to get permitting to be able to build,” not to mention finding and training the right talent.
Trump's broad government control also means investors should expect more IPO activity on the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE president Lynn Martin says she has met with “quite a few companies that are going to look to get out pretty early in ’25”—and indeed, some may list before the end of the year “now that the volatility has come off,” following the election. Said Martin: “I don’t see a stress point that would cause me to be pessimistic about the U.S. economy.”
Finally, noted economist Abby Joseph Cohen made the point that “policy is people”—and who those people are will likely change under Trump.
One of her concerns is the revival of a Trump executive order known as Schedule F. “Every administration deserves to have a cadre of political appointees,” she noted as part of our Fortune Global Forum discussion. “In the U.S. federal government, there are about 10,000 of those people spread across the country in various agencies… Under Schedule F, the 40,000 experts below them would also switch to political appointees.” Instead of having scientists, lawyers and other domain experts implementing policy, that could bring a different breed of decision-maker into government.
Stay tuned for the Senate hearings around Trump’s cabinet picks like Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary or Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. That could prove to be a bellwether moment for leaders looking to navigate a new landscape over the next four years.
More news below.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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