[T]he Trump Administration has delivered what the leftist naysayers claimed was impossible. Tweet If Trump thinks he can get more than 3% economic growth, he’s dreaming.

—Los Angeles Times economic columnist Michael Hiltzik, May 19, 2017 Expect a lot of boasting, but 3% growth is still nonsense.

—New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, January 28, 2018 Apparently, the budget forecasts that U.S. economic growth will rise to 3.0 percent because of the administration’s policies – largely its tax cuts and perhaps also its regulatory policies. Fair enough, if you believe in tooth fairies and ludicrous supply-side economics.

—Lawrence Summers, Obama Administration economic advisor, May 23,2017 They said it couldn’t be done. In fact, critics mocked candidate Donald Trump for even suggesting the possibility. And following his improbable election, they’ve subjected him and representatives of his administration to the same mockery. Until now. In just his first full calendar year in office, President Trump has already exceeded the promised 3% economic growth that triggered leftist mockery. It provides just the latest proof that tax cuts, deregulation and limited government provide the most reliable wellspring for economic acceleration. To understand that truth more fully, it helps to first recall what happened under Barack Obama, who pursued the opposite course of more regulation, higher taxes and bigger government. Obama and his apologists incessantly plead that he “inherited a mess,” and that his policies somehow ended the recession and averted “the next Great Depression.” But that’s demonstrably false. The truth is that Obama actually inherited a rebounding economy, but proceeded to oversee the most sluggish cyclical economic “recovery” in recorded U.S. history. That’s not opinion, that’s objective fact. In terms of “inheriting a mess” and “preventing the next Great Depression,” one need only examine the federal government’s official quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) reports, which is how economic recessions and recoveries are defined. A “recession” is defined as two or more consecutive quarters of economic contraction, and the 2008 recession began in the third and fourth quarters of 2008, when our economy contracted at 1.9% and then 8.2% rates. But by the first quarter of 2009, the contraction eased to a 5.4% rate, and the second quarter of 2009 almost reached positive territory, contracting at just a 0.5% rate. By June 2009, less than five months into Obama’s term and obviously long before any of his economic agenda took effect, the recession was already over and our economy grew 1.3%. Accordingly, the economy experienced a steep V-shaped contraction and rebound before Obama’s policies had any effect. He inherited a recovery, not a looming “next Great Depression.” Facts are facts. But then for the ensuing eight years, what we witnessed was the most sluggish “recovery” in history. Again, that’s not opinion. That’s demonstrable fact. Consider that since World War II, the U.S. has averaged 3.3% GDP growth each year. Under Obama, however, we never even reached 3% growth in a calendar year. That had never happened for such an extended stretch before. Until Obama. Over Obama’s eight years, we averaged just 1.88% economic growth. That wasn’t what he and his team promised us when he was elected, of course. While selling Obama’s wasteful trillion-dollar spending “stimulus” to the electorate, we were promised that unemployment would never exceed 8%. Instead, we proceeded to exceed 8% unemployment for the longest consecutive monthly stretch in recorded U.S. history. Also for the first time in recorded U.S. history, median incomes actually declined rather than increased during the so-called Obama economic “recovery.” All the while, Obama brought us four consecutive federal budget deficits exceeding $1 trillion, when the largest deficit before his presidency was less than half that at $450 billion. By the end of his term, Obama was preposterously bragging that he had “cut the deficit in half,” but what he left out was that he’d first tripled it for four consecutive years. By the end of his term, Obama had accumulated more debt than all other previous presidents combined. To rationalize all of this, left-wing economists and Obama apologists retreated to claiming that economic growth of 3% was somehow a thing of the past. “Secular stagnation,” they assured us, was here to stay. When Trump or conservative and libertarian economists asserted otherwise, they were roundly maligned, as illustrated above. But then the Trump Administration commenced its economic policy of deregulation and tax cuts, and a funny thing happened. Consumer confidence almost immediately jolted to record highs beginning in November 2016 (after remaining in negative territory throughout almost all of Obama’s presidency, with the exception of two months in late 2014). That’s critical, because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy. Small-business confidence also reached record highs, which is similarly critical because small businesses account for two-thirds of all new jobs created in America. Stock markets have also rocketed to record highs, even though Paul Krugman predicted on election night 2016 that they would crash and literally “never” recover. Yes, he actually said that. You can look it up. Additionally, employment in America has blossomed to such levels that job openings exceed the number of unemployed Americans for the first time in history. And now, the Trump Administration has delivered what the leftist naysayers claimed was impossible. Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced that GDP grew by 3.1% from the prior year. That reflects the fact that the 2017 tax cuts became effective for 2018, and deregulatory policies in every realm from telecommunications to energy policy continued apace. It all confirms once again the lessons learned from the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively. If you want to grow our economy, create jobs and increase prosperity, tax cuts and deregulation provide the best path to achieving it. People like Krugman and Summers predicted catastrophe when Trump reversed nearly a decade of Obama’s policies, but what happened instead is that we immediately transitioned from malaise to acceleration. Hopefully, that lesson resonates a little longer this time.