Trump’s alma mater, Wharton School of Business, published a tax policy simulator in October that looked at both presidential candidates’ tax plans. On Trump’s, it concluded that “[i]n the short run, Donald Trump’s tax plan boosts economic growth.” however, over the long term

his plan is unbalanced fiscally, [so] it’s going to produce fairly large deficits. That will have this crowding-out effect. [Government borrowing will] compete with private capital for household savings. We’re projecting that within 10 years — 2027 — we’ll have 700,000 fewer jobs. By 2040, if the debt is as continuously almost spiraling out of control, we’re projecting 11 million fewer jobs.

Former Secretary of Treasury, Lawrence Summers, wrote an op-ed for the London Financial Times pointing out key differences between Donald Trump’s proposed cuts and Reagan’s 1981 and 1986 cuts. The core principle of Reagan’s tax cuts was that reform should not reduce the tax burden on high-income taxpayers. This meant expanding the tax base to prevent deep budget deficits from negatively affecting economic growth, so Reagan instituted some of the largest tax increases since World War II.

There’s no evidence that Trump understands, let alone agrees with, this principle despite his mouth service to Reagan’s mythology. Trump’s tax plan increases the tax burden of middle-income and low-income households while creating huge deficits, flying in the face of Reagan’s tax policy. The architect of Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, Bruce Bartlett, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times explaining to Trump why the Reagan tax cuts should be avoided, not replicated.

Tax rates were very high when Reagan proposed cutting them — much higher than today. The high tax rates from the World War II era had been only partly cut by John F. Kennedy, and the top income-tax rate was 70 percent. Inflation was pushing workers into higher tax brackets when they received cost-of-living pay raises.

…

the Reagan tax cut played only a secondary role in the 1980s boom, which wasn’t really much of a boom. Real G.D.P. grew 37.9 percent in the 1970s, compared with 36.1 percent in the 1980s. The economy felt better because inflation came down extraordinarily quickly, far more quickly than economists in 1980 thought was possible. But this was primarily a result of the Federal Reserve’s tight money policy, not taxes.

It is interesting to dwell on this goalpost given the number of times Trump has moved it. Previously, Trump flirted with the idea of 6 percent growth–few economists are confident we can grow faster than the projected 2 percent. For reasons that include the previous generation of workers retiring and declining immigration, it’s difficult to imagine GDP growth surpassing 3 percent, as we don’t have a large enough labor pool to add the millions of additional workers that would have to beat current projections.

Deutsche Bank (DB) has bucked the trend of global forecasts since Trump’s election though. Three weeks after his victory, they raised their global economic forecast, specifically their projections for real GDP growth in America “from 1.7 per cent next year and 1.9 per cent in 2018, to 2.3 per cent in 2017 and 3.5 per cent the following year.” Deutsche did point out, however, that

if Mr Trump puts his full focus on protectionist policies like clamping down on trade and curbing immigration, or the US economy is squeezed by a strong US dollar, …[t]here’s also the possibility that Mr Trump’s policies will backfire, turning the markets’ optimism on its head

There is no reason to believe that Trump will suddenly abandon his protectionist policies, however.

Early in January, CNBC reported on a DB report that predicted Trump would “push 2017 growth to 2.4 percent and 2018 up to 3.6 percent.”.

Key to DB analyses’ are predictions that Trump’s revised tax plan will attract capital and spur unprecedented economic growth, but take care to notice that the advisors responsible for the revisions were also architects of Kansas’ disastrous tax cut plan (the tax plans are very similar). What actually ended up happening in Kansas was that revenues fell, quality of services fell, employment lagged as did wage growth, and GDP growth slackened, all despite optimistic claims of “near immediate growth.”

The defining issues of our time are the threat of ecological catastrophe and unprecedented income inequality, so it is fitting for a “modern regulatory framework” to be crafted by billionaire Carl Icahn who, like all billionaires and corporate entities,can be trusted to self-regulate.

“Icahn has billions in stock holdings … he will also be in charge of overseeing regulatory overhauls while simultaneously controlling or owning stock in companies that could benefit from the changes he makes…It looks like Trump isn’t the only billionaire set to profit off of the presidency.”

In order to achieve this new framework, here are some of the things that would have to go:

• Dodd-Frank regulations which addressed–but did not solve–the numerous problems within the financial services industry that nearly led to a depression.
• Environmental and health regulations protecting public health and consumer safety
• Environmental regulations protecting clean water
• Regulations protecting cyber security and privacy

Trump’s alma mater, Wharton School of Business, published a tax policy simulator in October that looked at both presidential candidates’ tax plans. On Trump’s, it concluded that “[i]n the short run, Donald Trump’s tax plan boosts economic growth,” however, over the long term

his plan is unbalanced fiscally, [so] it’s going to produce fairly large deficits. That will have this crowding-out effect. [Government borrowing will] compete with private capital for household savings. We’re projecting that within 10 years — 2027 — we’ll have 700,000 fewer jobs. By 2040, if the debt is as continuously almost spiraling out of control, we’re projecting 11 million fewer jobs.

Former Secretary of Treasury, Lawrence Summers, wrote an op-ed for the London Financial Times pointing out fundamental differences between Donald Trump’s proposed cuts and Reagan’s 1981 and 1986 cuts. The core principle of Reagan’s tax cuts was that reform should not reduce the tax burden on high-income taxpayers. To this end, Reagan expanded the tax base to prevent deep budget deficits from negatively affecting economic growth, so Reagan instituted some of the largest tax increases since World War II.

There’s no evidence that Trump understands, let alone agrees with, this principle despite his mouth service to Reagan’s mythology. Trump’s tax plan increases the tax burden on middle-income and low-income households while creating massive deficits, flying in the face of Reagan’s tax policy.

The architect of Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, Bruce Bartlett, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times explaining to Trump why the Reagan tax cuts should be avoided, not replicated.

Tax rates were very high when Reagan proposed cutting them — much higher than today. The high tax rates from the World War II era had been only partly cut by John F. Kennedy, and the top income-tax rate was 70 percent. Inflation was pushing workers into higher tax brackets when they received cost-of-living pay raises.

…

the Reagan tax cut played only a secondary role in the 1980s boom, which wasn’t really much of a boom. Real G.D.P. grew 37.9 percent in the 1970s, compared with 36.1 percent in the 1980s. The economy felt better because inflation came down extraordinarily quickly, far more quickly than economists in 1980 thought was possible. But this was primarily a result of the Federal Reserve’s tight money policy, not taxes.

The penny plan is pretty simple–you cut 0.01 of a whole or 1% of the budget annually (excluding defense and entitlement spending). While simple, it’s not desirable or even realistic.

Usually, there are mandatory increases built into the budget each year–the expenditures required to maintain the same level of services goes up with the population, but the quality of public services are expected to increase as the economy grows.

In an August 2016 report, the Congressional Budget Office found that Fiscal Year 2016, non-defense discretionary spending would reach $602 billion. This is a 3 percent increase from FY 2015 ($584 billion) and would be increased by another 2 percent in FY 2017 ($615 billion). To satisfy the penny plan, he would have to cut the FY 2017 budget by 3 percent ($596 billion). These penny cuts begin to snowball quickly.

The CBO currently puts non-defense discretionary spending for FY 2026 at $710 billion. Donald Trump’s penny plan would amount to a 23 percent cut in non-defense discretionary spending, bringing it down to $546 billion.

Under Trump, however, discretionary defense spending would go up beyond current projections. Defending spending for FY 2016 comes out to $579 billion. By FY 2026, it is projected to reach $719 billion. While there are little to no concrete numbers, his plan will cost an estimated additional $800 to $900 hillion, bringing the discretionary defense spending to around $1.5 trillion.

All of this is not including mandatory spending (including entitlement programs and social spending) that Trump has pledged not to cut, currently around $2.6 trillion and projected to reach $4.7 trillion by 2026.

Altogether, a very rough estimate of what the budget following Trump’s promises may be in the neighborhood of $6.7 trillion by 2026 (which is about $600 billion higher than the $6.1 trillion budget currently projected by the CBO).

How would he pay for this?

Revenues are about $3.276 trillion for FY 2016, projected in FY 2026 to be just shy of $5 trillion. Donald Trump’s tax plan is estimated to cut revenues by as much as $6.2 trillion over this ten year period (but this is before accounting for interest on the unpaid debt or macroeconomic effects from a drop in stimulus spending). Averaged over ten years, this is a $620 billion hit to revenue, cutting FY 2026 projections to $4.4 trillion. That leaves us with a deficit of $2.3 trillion for that year alone.

Tax Policy Foundation estimates a smaller cut for tax revenues ($2.6 to $3.9 trillion over ten years if the tax base is expanded, $4.4 to $5.9 billion if not). Even with the best case scenario in mind, the deficit ranges from $1.9 trillion to $2.3 trillion for that year alone.

For comparison, Obama’s FY 2016 budget deficit was $534 billion.

Trump’s child care plan is one of his most detailed proposals (see: his Fact Sheet and Full Report) so it gives a lot of room to check this claim out.

His plan actually provides tax cuts at every income level but not for every household. The majority of Trump’s tax cuts are for the highest-income households, with 47% of all savings going to the wealthiest 1% of households. The relative tax burden of working and middle-class households *would actually increase

It conservatively estimates that Trump’s plan would increase taxes for about 8.7 million families. About 20 percent of households and more than half of single parents would pay more in taxes. Roughly 26 million individuals reside in these families facing a tax increase, including 11 million adults and 15 million children.

There are three major tax policy changes Trump has proposed which are at the center of this tax hike on working and middle class families. First, his tax-deductible childcare costs stop after your child turns 13. Keep in mind that it is a deduction, meaning it is only available to households that make enough to owe the government taxes, excluding 40 percent of Americans who make too little to pay taxes. Second, personal and dependent exemptions are entirely eliminated, coming down hardest on households with more than two children. Third, head of the household filing status is removed from tax code, increasing the burden on single payer families.

This childcare plan is, unsurprisingly, only another part of a larger policy central to the Trump administration–flagrant disregard for the livelihoods of Americans outside the wealthiest households.

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/early-childhood-education/

There are only two countries in the world that do not have paid maternity leave. One is a group of islands in Oceania, slightly larger than California but with 1% of its GDP (20.47 billion USD), and with an agricultural economy that “provides a subsistence livelihood for 85% of the people.”. The other is the most powerful country ever to exist.

OECD nations (the highest-income nations), on average, provide 17 weeks of paid maternity leave. Among the 35 OECD countries, the United States is dead last with zero weeks of paid maternity leave.

Trump’s plan is a small step in the right direction (from 35th place to 33rd), and a few problems emerge when you examine it.

The first problem is the money. Maternity benefits would take the form of six weeks of unemployment insurance–a maximum weekly payout ranging from $250 to $800. With an average weekly benefit closer to $300–40% of the median full pay for women–the cost comes to $3.4 billion. To pay for this, Trump plans to end the rampant fraud in our unemployment system and use the savings–but the low level of unemployment fraud may not be sufficient to pay for his plan.

All this is also ignoring the fact that Trump is either misrepresenting or misunderstanding how unemployment insurance works because states fund UI. The federal government cannot reallocate state payroll taxes from unemployment insurance to this barebones maternity leave program since “‘The money that the states get in unemployment-insurance taxes goes into trust funds that by law can’t be used for any purpose but to pay unemployment benefits.’”

The second problem is that six weeks of paid maternity leave is too short. Numerous studies show there are significant health benefits tied to maternity leave, but when extended beyond six weeks.

Infant mortality drops by 13% after a one month of paid leave is added, largely because mothers have easier time breastfeeding, pursuing vaccinations, and seeking out medical attention if the child is ill.

A significant number of countries where the vast majority of maternal and child deaths occur provide less than 12 weeks of paid leave to new mothers

Women who had short family leave (less than 12 weeks of total leave after childbirth, less than eight weeks of paid leave") had “increases in depressive symptoms, and … a reduction in overall health status.”

The mother’s mental and physical health can be an important route through which infants are affected by parents' employment decisions

Comprehensive maternity leave programs provide mental health benefits that persist into old age, women being 14% less likely to experience later life depression symptoms decades later(affects six million US adults 50 years or older a year; affects women 2:1).

All this is without mentioning the economic benefits of paid maternity leave. Women work more hours, receive less welfare, and see a reduction of “ disparities in leave-taking between low and high socioeconomic groups … without damaging these women’s later labor market prospects.”

His plan is a (very) small step in the right direction, but it’s still problematic. Its scope is narrow; its funding scheme borders on fiction; any difficulties experienced will poison the ground for future developments that extend leave length or expand it to both parents (similar to how sabotaging Obamacare deferred dreams of single payer healthcare).