After a contentious 2016 election season filled with nearly two years of debates, campaign ads, caucuses, primaries, speeches, and general elections, America has finally settled on a new leader to chart a course for the next four years. President-elect Donald J. Trump has discussed several ideas to reinvigorate the economy, improve quality of life, and close the income gaps for millions of Americans.

 Now that the November elections are behind us, we can dive further into President-elect Trump’s ideas to update the tax code, overturn certain workplace regulations, and empower families. Below you’ll find a quick overview of President-elect Trump’s plans to increase wages, lower taxes, and cut through red tape. 

 Overview

President-elect Trump’s plans for the economy, pocketbooks, and workplaces centers on “unleashing the power and productivity of U.S. business and entrepreneurship, bringing prosperity, creating jobs and improving the lives of working families.” At this point in the Presidential transition, President-elect Trump hasn’t put forth legislative text or actionable plans, however, his campaign has released outlines for several tax, regulatory, and quality of life changes. Below, you’ll find the four major tenets of President-elect Trump’s outlines. 

• Regulatory Reform
• Tax Reform
• Trade Reform
• Energy Reform
   

Regulatory Reform

The U.S. Department of Labor’s overtime rule is one of the biggest regulatory hurdles that park and recreation agencies across the country have been struggling with over the past year. A number of agencies are limiting hours or awarding comp time in order to remain in compliance with the impending rule. The NRPA Public Policy Team has been closely following the implementation of this regulation, which is slated to go into effect on December 1, 2016, and would impact over 4 million employees nationwide.  

 In August, President-elect Trump stated that he’d like to address the issues of over-taxation and over-regulation. Specifically, he said “rolling back the overtime regulation is just one example of the many regulations that need to be addressed to do that. We would love to see a delay or carve-out of sorts for our small business owners.” While there aren’t enough details available on President-elect Trump’s website to determine a potential timeline of action on the overtime rule, we can examine several bills pending in Congress for further ideas of what may occur next year.

 In September, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to delay the implementation of the overtime rule until June 1, 2017. This six-month delay was intended to give businesses additional time to implement the rule before the holiday season kicks off. Similar legislation has also been introduced that would afford businesses three years to implement the overtime rule; however, this bill has not received a vote on the House floor. We’ll keep an eye on this issue as President-elect Trump’s regulatory reform agenda takes shape, and continue to monitor these bills as they move through the legislative process. 

The Trump transition team has put forth a number of ideas about how to improve the lives of Americans – especially working families. In particular, President-elect Trump’s plan to provide six weeks of paid maternity leave to new mothers stands out for its potential populist appeal to working families. This change could have bipartisan support depending how it’s drafted. The plan would update the nation’s unemployment insurance (UI) laws to provide six additional weeks of paid maternity leave. Rather than mandate paid maternal leave, as many existing proposals seek to do, President-elect Trump’s plan would be financed by reducing improper unemployment insurance payments. This idea is based upon California’s paid family leave policy, which has been found to benefit new mothers of all incomes, races, and education levels; however, the end result may differ in terms of the percentage of weekly wages paid and job protection guarantees. 
 

Looking Forward

As park and recreation agencies look ahead to 2017, President-elect Trump’s proposed changes to overtime rules and maternity leave laws could have profound impacts upon staffing, manpower, administrative costs, and employee morale and pay. Removing regulatory hurdles and lowering administrative costs for businesses certainly appears to be at the top of President-elect Trump’s to-do list during the 115th Congress. These changes have the potential to keep managers, administrators, and directors at park and recreation agencies busy in the coming months. NRPA’s Public Policy Team looks forward to working on your behalf with the Trump administration to develop feasible and sound plans for updating overtime pay laws and maternity leave requirements.  

You can follow our efforts to keep the Trump administration abreast of the important role park and recreation agencies play across America via social media.