Several of those possibilities are immediately available to Trump, if he wants to reach for them. His daughter’s child-care subsidy could be reconfigured to deliver more to the working class; it could be combined with the larger earned-income tax credit envisioned by Paul Ryan or the wage subsidy that Marco Rubio is championing, and both could be folded into a tax reform that makes good on Trump’s Treasury nominee’s recent promise to prioritize middle-class tax cuts over tax cuts for the rich.
None of this would solve the long-term dilemma of slow wage growth. But it would make it immediately easier, often to the tune of thousands of dollars a year, for Americans who aren’t employed by companies amenable to Trumpian jawboning to pay bills, raise children, take vacations, and pursue the American Dream.
It would also cost money, money that conventional Republican economics — and Trump’s official campaign tax plan — tends to reserve for upper-bracket tax cuts. Which is why the tax policy to expect from Trump is probably a modest gesture toward Middle America paired with a sweeping, 1-percent-friendly, supply-side tax cut.
But it could be otherwise.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member