Which of Donald Trump's campaign promises will he actually achieve?
All options are taken from https://www.donaldjtrump.com/issues or https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-cementing-fair-and-reciprocal-trade-with-the-trump-reciprocal-trade-act
Resolves YES for any items that have been achieved by the end of his presidency. They have to actually have been achieved (for example, a bill has passed to ban trans women from participating in women's sports, a constitutional amendment has been passed), though it doesn't have to be the most complete version, just enough that it's reasonable to say that it has been achieved (for example, trans women could be banned at the high school level but not college level). He doesn't have to have directly caused it to happen, it just has to have happened. They do have to have occurred nationwide however (so individual states banning trans women would not count without a nationwide ban).
If any promise was debatably already true (for example, ending COVID mandates), he must take some action to go further.
For many of these, it will ultimately wind up being somewhat subjective, but I will do my best to be impartial and defer to consensus opinion, and I will not hold any positions in this market. If any are too ambiguous, I reserve the right to resolve N/A.
All options resolve N/A if Donald Trump is not elected president in 2024.
For some positions that are not objective on Trump's campaign website, I will provide a specific definition below. For items that are based on a given date, I will as close as possible compare December 31, 2024 with December 31, 2028, or compare December 2024 with December 2028. For items based on a quarter, I will compare Q4 2024 with Q4 2028. For items that are based on a given year or fiscal year, I will compare 2024 with 2028.
"lower taxes"
Compare the total federal revenue in each year, adjusted for GDP. This is not precisely the same as taxes, but it's almost entirely taxes and other forms of fees are in some way equivalent to taxes
"bigger paychecks"
Compare the "Annual Wages per Employee" in each quarter, adjusted for inflation
"more jobs for American workers"
The nonfarm payroll employment in the US is higher than at the start of the term.
"reduce the soaring price of gasoline, diesel and natural gas"
Compare the national average price of gasoline and diesel at the pump, and Henry Hub Natural Gas spot price. All three must be lower.
Related questions
There are a lot of options on here that still seem like they could use further clarification. How are you going to adjudicate, ""uphold your religious liberty, including the Constitutional right to pray in public schools," for example? It's already legal to pray in public schools, they just can't be state-sponsored prayers. Does he have to cause Engel v. Vitale to be overturned for this to resolve YES?
@PlasmaBallin Since this is already true to some extent, he must do some further action. That doesn't need to be overturning Engel v. Vitale, but it has to be some meaningful action taken to change it. For example, a bill could be passed that mandates that schools need to have a ten minute period at the start of every day that can 'either be used for prayer or sitting in respectful silence'. I don't know if this would be constitutional, but it doesn't quite seem to go against Engel.
@Gabrielle I'm pretty sure this exact thing has already been ruled unconstitutional in a follow-up case. There were a lot of schools that tried to do a "moment of silence" to get around Engel v. Vitale.
@PlasmaBallin Good to know, thanks. Sounds like this one might be somewhat tough for Trump to achieve, though I suppose Roe v. Wade was also considered pretty fixed law a few years ago.
@PlasmaBallin Hah, good thought, but no. That one will resolve based on some combination of looking at whether prison populations have gone up and if so what categories of criminals made up that increase.
This market is a mess. Lots of these are either trivially 0% / 100%, or impossible to adjudicate, depending on how you interpret. And the fact that there are 53 options means most traders won't even read them all.
Would have been much better to select only a few promises to focus on, ones which are meaningful (unlike "bigger paychecks") and can be cleanly adjudicated (unlike "keep America out of unnecessary foreign wars").
@Lorxus I think this one (and the other censorship one) require the censorship banning to be generic, not just speech he agrees with - it’s supposed to be about restoring the first amendment, and that isn’t specific about which speech is allowed.
@Gabrielle True, but historically lopsided enforcement of anti-censorship statutes has been the MO of choice for governments to pretend they're promoting free speech while outsourcing cracking down on Undesirables, including historically in the US. So - my question stands?
@Lorxus I’m going to resolve this based on it being actually anti-censorship, not just anti-conservative-censorship or anti-patriotic-censorship.
If he promised “I’ll give all Americans $1000” and then only gave Trump voters that (because “they are the only true Americans”), that would have to resolve NO, and this seems similar.
@Gabrielle Not sure why this applies here and not in “upholding religious liberty, including praying in public schools”
@Gabrielle
"lower taxes": I'm not sure if total revenue is a good metric because it also dependent on the size of the economy. He could lower taxes, but in four years the economy could grow a lot, which would increase federal revenue despite lower taxes
"bigger paychecks": You should probably adjust for inflation
@Simon74fe I’ve added a note that they’re both adjusted for inflation. I’ll need to think more about whether a different metric for taxes makes more sense. Do you have a suggestion?
@Gabrielle "lower taxes" should be adjusted by gdp, not just by inflation. I'm also not sure if there are any other better metrics