By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
It was quite a sight to see as President-Elect Trump rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange to start the trading day and accept Time Magazine’s Man of the Year award.
His incoming cabinet officials watched and cheered from the floor, including Oregon’s own Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee. She stood alongside North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Interior Secretary nominee; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Health and Human Services Secretary nominee; Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary nominee; and Pam Bondi, Attorney General nominee, among others.
Traders on the floor chanted “USA!” as Trump appeared in the balcony to ring the bell flanked by the owners of Time magazine, Vice-President J.D. Vance, Melania Trump, daughters Ivanka and Tiffany Trump and others.
Trump is the third U.S. President to ring the NYSE’s opening bell, a symbol of capitalism. President Ronald Reagan was the first, and President George W. Bush was the second.
In an interview after the bell about his plans for the economy, President-Elect Trump said he would cut taxes substantially. He said he’d slash the corporate tax rate for companies that manufacture in the U.S. “You pay 21% if you don’t build here. If you do, we’re going to try and get it to 15%, but you have to build your product, make your product in the USA.”
About American workers he said, “We want everbody to do well. We want great jobs with fantastic salaries. We want people to love..and when they wake up in the morning, like get up and ‘I love to go to work, I want to go to work’…We want people working and we want them working for a lot of money.”