Here’s how Trump plans to boost the middle class with lower taxes, cheaper energy
Former President Donald Trump outlined his second-term vision for the middle class Wednesday, featuring his plans to slash energy prices in half, dramatically claw back taxes, and beat back inflation.
Promising to “make America affordable again,” Trump laid out a broad plan to direct his cabinet secretaries and agencies to partner on a comprehensive effort to “defeat inflation” and embark on business-friendly tax and regulatory reforms aimed at boosting the economy.
Slashing electricity bills
A key pillar of his economic agenda is energy policy.
“I’m announcing that under my leadership, the United States will commit to the ambitious goal of slashing energy [and] electricity prices by half — at least half — within 12 months and a maximum [of] 18 months,” Trump vowed during a speech in Asheville, North Carolina, Wednesday.
Trump, 78, has previously long explained that he intends to roll back barriers to domestic petroleum production such as greenlighting more permits and relaxing regulations.
He has also juxtaposed his energy agenda with that of Vice President Kamala Harris, who previously backed expansive climate change positions, including support for the Green New Deal, a resolution to dramatically reshape the economy and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
Some of those items she backed included a $10 trillion plan from her 2020 campaign that would have eliminated gas-powered vehicles by 2035, another 2020 campaign pitch to phase out fossil fuel production on public lands and a ban on fracking, on which her campaign claims she has since reversed.
“At the center of our effort to bring the cost of living under control will be the all-out push to end the Biden-Harris war on a thing called American energy,” he said. “We will drill, baby, drill.”
The 45th president blamed President Biden’s energy policy in part for exacerbating inflation. He vowed that energy prices would “come tumbling down” under his watch.
Taming inflation
Trump teased an all-of-government effort to tackle inflation, which has slipped for four months in a row, clocking in annually at 2.9% for July — but still remains stubbornly above the 2% threshold that the Federal Reserve targets.
“On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign an executive order directing every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down,” the 78-year-old former president proclaimed.
Trump ticked off a litany of statistics about how the costs of insurance, housing and more are elevated for working-class Americans.
He also pledged to target other areas where prices remain high, including through cabinet efforts to target those sectors.
“Inflation is destroying our country. It’s destroying our families. We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues … to the price of prescription drugs, I will instruct my cabinet that I expect results within the first 100 days, or much sooner than that,” Trump said.
Tax relief
Reiterating many of his well-worn campaign pledges, Trump further vowed to slash taxes.
This includes his plan to eliminate taxes on tips for workers — estimated to cost $250 billion a year — which Harris stole from Trump over the weekend.
It also would eliminate taxes on Social Security — estimated to cost almost $160 billion annually — and extend the tax cuts that he previously pushed through in 2017.
Dovetailing with tax cuts is regulatory relief, which Trump predicts would help average Americans boost their incomes as well.
Border crackdown
During his address, Trump also briefly referenced his plans to crack down on illegal immigration and secure the border, thereby protecting American workers from cheap labor.
“She’s [flooding] our country with millions and millions of low-wage migrants,” Trump lamented, pointing to Harris’ failure at handling the border crisis.
Trump indicated that he would revive some of the immigration policies he had in place during his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico agreement, in which migrants would wait in Mexico for their court hearings rather than getting released onto US soil.
A prebuttal of sorts against Harris
Trump’s speech preempted an address that Harris is set to deliver Friday in North Carolina in which she will lay out an economic agenda of her own, including plans to beat back inflation.
“Kamala Harris won’t end the economic crisis, she will only make it worse,” Trump chided during his remarks. “I gave Harris and Biden an economic miracle, and they quickly turned it into an economic nightmare with a nation-wrecking agenda ripped straight out of Kamala’s San Francisco liberal playbook.”
Polls have generally shown Trump drawing higher marks from voters on the economy than Harris and that concerns about the cost of living remain top of mind heading into the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Harris’ plan is expected to feature a call for a national ban on corporate price-gouging. She has also sought to create some distance from Biden on economic policy, according to Axios.
“Does anyone here feel richer under Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe than you were during the Trump administration? Is anything less expensive under Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe?” Trump asked.
“When Kamala lays out her fake economic plan this week, [it] probably will be a copy of my plan, because basically, that’s what she does,” he chided.
That’s a reference to Harris calling for “no tax on tips” last week during a rally in Los Vegas, weeks after Trump first pitched that proposal.
