| President Donald Trump is marking six months into his second term this week. He said on social media over the weekend that he’s had “one of the most consequential periods of any President.” He has been on a run recently with getting cuts to spending and taxes through Congress, ramping up deportations and wins at the Supreme Court bolstering much of this. But polls show Americans are skeptical whether his domestic successes are good for them and the country. An Associated Press/NORC poll conducted earlier this month found that more Americans are likely to say that Trump’s policies will hurt them rather than help them. Here’s what Trump’s done since returning to Washington and how Americans feel about it. He is dramatically reducing the size of the federal government Nearly every aspect of government has been affected, including weather forecasts, pandemic research, studying environmental hazards, Social Security services and federal prosecutors. The Education Department may soon be stripped “down to the plywood,” based on a lawsuit by teachers unions and states. More than 1,300 people recently lost their jobs at the State Department. Trump’s latest cuts come after billionaire Elon Musk led mass layoffs in a process so rushed, the government asked many people to come back. The Supreme Court has given the president the go-ahead to do this for now, even as lower courts have ruled some of it may be illegal. Legal experts warn some of these firings could make the government more likely to do the president’s ideological bidding rather than serving taxpayers. William Galston, head of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, likened the Trump administration’s cuts to the government to “trying to do surgery with a meat ax.” “I predict if they keep on going down this road,” he said in an interview earlier this year, “there’s going to be a big bump in it, in the form of service slowdowns that can be traced back to what they’re doing now.” A CNN/SSRS poll taken after deadly floods in Texas highlighted cuts to the Weather Service in the region found that 58 percent of Americans say Trump has gone too far in cutting federal programs. He is launching mass deportations The one area of the government growing by billions of dollars is border and immigration security. Immigration and Customs Enforcement staffing is expected to surge, as the agency works to meet it is under a quota from the White House to detain thousands of migrants a day. At the same time, the Trump administration is moving to rapidly deport as many people as it can and hold millions more migrants in detention for months or even years, propping up makeshift detention centers in the Florida Everglades and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Immigration experts have warned this could make many American communities feel like a police state, with more mistaken arrests and more people’s due process rights violated, as well as putting more ICE agents in potentially dangerous situations. Trump’s aggressive deportations appear to have turned public opinion against them rather quickly. A Gallup poll conducted in June found that a majority of Americans don’t want to reduce immigration; a reversal from a year ago. Republican strategists have told me that as long as Trump messages that he’s deporting criminals, he can keep public support through these deportations. But a new CBS News/YouGov poll finds that most Americans say he’s prioritizing people who aren’t dangerous criminals; a perception that aligns with the facts. Many Americans won’t see tax increases next year Earlier this month, Republicans in Congress approved what may be Trump’s major legislative accomplishment in his second term: extending modest tax cuts for most Americans from his first term that were set to expire. The bill temporarily eliminates taxes on some tips and overtime pay and expands the child tax credit, while giving a tax break to middle-class seniors. It also disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Republicans say the tax changes in the law will grow the economy, and economists I’ve talked to don’t disagree. But those economists cautioned that Republicans are overstating the growth potential and that the trillions added to the national debt from the legislation could be more consequential. Polls have shown Americans are skeptical the president’s tax legislation will help them, while 70 percent of Americans say Trump hasn’t focused enough on lowering prices, CBS/YouGov finds. He is pulling way back on federal spending Trump has frozen millions in federal grants, including for climate research and teaching grants. Congress has cut spending to public radio and TV, major international aid programs, federal food-assistance programs and the federal health insurance program Medicaid, as well as investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It could mean 17 million people lose their health insurance or subsidies that make it more affordable, according to a nonpartisan estimate. But a majority of Americans want spending on Medicaid and food-assistance programs maintained or increased, an AP/NORC poll conducted in June found. And polls suggest even Republicans are skeptical about some of this. “I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the influential former Republican Senate leader, told his colleagues in June. “But they’ll get over it.” He instituted widespread tariffs Trump has single-handedly and dramatically changed America’s role in global trade and could make many goods bought and even made in America more expensive, The Washington Post’s David J. Lynch reports. There are at least 10 percent tariffs on almost all imports coming to the U.S., and Trump’s regular threats to institute more creates an uncertainty that businesses say is destabilizing and that some economists warn enacting further tariffs could lead to a recession. The tariffs already in place are unpopular with Americans. CBS News/YouGov finds that 60 percent of Americans oppose his tariffs and 64 percent think he hasn’t done enough to battle inflation. Trump says the taxes on foreign goods at the border are a way for the government to collect income. “We’re making a fortune. We are taking in hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. But that may be overstated, and economists say that many of the businesses paying those taxes are American ones. As Lynch reports: “The money actually comes from people like Bobby Djavaheri, president of Yedi Houseware in Los Angeles. The family-owned company imports air fryers, small grills and pressure cookers from China and distributes them through TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods outlets. ‘Hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to the federal government from my pocket — not the Chinese, as the president has suggested so many times,’ Djavaheri said.” | 
