Finance & economics | Everyone wins

Trump’s trillion-dollar tax cuts are spiralling out of control

His zany promises would blow up the deficit

Donald Trump speaks beside a sign saying "No Tax on Overtime" during a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia on October 15h 2024
Photograph: Reuters
|Washington, DC

For American policy wonks, the final stretch of the presidential election has given rise to a new parlour game. What is the next tax that Donald Trump will promise to cut? The Republican candidate has trotted out a range of pledges, from no taxes on overtime work to no taxes on retirement benefits. Last week alone he proposed three new exemptions, including making interest on car loans tax-deductible. It is easy to figure out what Mr Trump hopes to gain. Yet the economic implications are dispiriting: not just a bigger fiscal deficit but a much messier tax code.

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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Blue-sky thinking”

From the October 19th 2024 edition

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