Donald Trump has promised quick action on a number of fronts upon being sworn in as President. One of his statements after he won the election was, “Promises made, promises kept. We’re going to keep our promises”. Citizens across the country, many who voted for Trump, will soon learn how painful many of these promised policies will likely be.
- Deportation of “illegal” immigrants. Senator Jim Banks, Indiana stated that “the GOP must deport every illegal immigrant”. The GOP estimates that’s 15 million people. This will create labor shortages in several industries because these immigrants do jobs that most Americans refuse to do. Wages will have to rise in those industries, so maybe Americans (as long as it’s not your kid) will decide they are willing, after all, to work all day picking crops, slaughtering animals, cleaning machinery in factories (a dangerous job), etc…, which will cause prices of goods/services in those industries to rise (increasing inflation). Also, people tend to believe illegal immigrants are people they don’t know or interact with, which often is not the case. In 2017 after Trump’s first election, residents of a northern Michigan town were very supportive of his promise to deport “illegals.” Then they discovered the Hispanic manager of a local restaurant in town, who had lived there for about 15 years, had been arrested and was being deported. Residents began working to prevent his deportation because, of course, the “illegal” immigrants they wanted deported were all those other ones across the country that they didn’t know or interact with. Those were the problem ones. Not the Hispanic manager of the local restaurant they had come to know and like.
- Reforming (Ending?) Obamacare. Although Trump’s frequent promises to end, replace, and/or reform the Affordable Care Act have never come to fruition, there is one action that is a pretty clear target: the ending of subsidies to help Americans buy health insurance that was implemented under the American Rescue Plan in 2021. The ARP increased both the amount of subsidy available to someone and the number of people eligible to receive a subsidy. The expansion of the subsidies are set to expire at the end of 2025. Both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have spoken against renewal of the subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that over four million Americans will lose their health care coverage if the subsidies are not renewed.
- Wide spread implementation of Tariffs. Despite Trump’s stated belief that foreign nations pay tariffs, there is virtual unanimous agreement among economists that the cost of tariffs are passed on to the consumers of the nation that implements the tariffs. So the tariffs will increase the price of imported goods (contributing to inflation). Also, history demonstrates that nations don’t simply acquiesce when a trading partner puts in tariffs against them. Instead, they respond by implementing tariffs against the nation that initially put in tariffs. The result will be that US exports to other countries will have tariffs put in against them, increasing the price of US exports in those countries, decreasing the amount of US products sold abroad, hurting companies that export those products, resulting in layoffs in those companies. This is exactly what happened when countries implemented tariffs at the start of the Great Depression to protect domestic industries against “cheap” foreign products. The result was a world-wide trade war that made the Great Depression even worse. However in this case, you could very well end up with the combination of higher prices and higher unemployment.
- Appoint Elon Musk as an Efficiency Czar. Trump promises he will create a “government efficiency commission” to conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.” Musk will head the commission. He and Trump have promised to identify “at least $2 trillion in cuts.” This includes reforms to the federal bureaucracy that will make it easier for the Administration to fire Civil Service employees and replace them with partisan appointees. It will include eliminating the enforcement capabilities of many departments in the Federal government, enforcement capabilities that protect Americans from the malfeasance of corporations in general, health care providers, financial entities, employers, etc… Musk has stated that his cuts will “involve some temporary hardship” for (some of) the American people. However it is very doubtful that Musk’s efficiency cuts will include any of the $4.9 billion in subsidies his companies have received from the Federal government, money, of course, that has been spent very efficiently.
- Tax Cuts and the Deficit. While it may seem odd to include tax cuts as a source of pain, it depends on who you cut taxes for. The Trump tax cuts from his previous term primarily benefitted the wealthy. He has promised to extend those tax cuts which would cost the government about $4 trillion over the next decade. In addition, he has promised to eliminate taxes on tips, social security benefits, and even on overtime. The loss revenue to the government: tips $150-$200 million over the next decade, Social Security benefits $1.8 trillion over the next decade, overtime $1.1 trillion over the next decade. This is a total of over $3 trillion over the next decade. So, combined with extending the Trump tax cuts of 2017 results in a $7 trillion reduction in government revenues. Musk’s Efficiency Commission is simply not going to be able to uncover that much inefficiency in government programs. The result will be spending cuts that will harm Americans and an exploding government deficit. Additionally, there is scant evidence that eliminating these taxes will have much impact on improving the situation for lower income workers and, in fact, are more likely to be boon for higher income individuals.
- Environment and Climate Change. Trump (and Republicans in general) have long been dismissive of policies connected with protecting the environment and climate change (and often referring to climate change as a hoax). Trump has made promises to drill more oil, increase fracking, end policies promoting clean energy, end policies promoting electric cars, cut emission standards, reduce funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, reduce funding for climate research, and once again pulling the US out of the Paris climate accords. While much of the pain from such policies will occur in the (not so distant) future, many Americans are experiencing the pain of environmental degradation and climate change in the present; from health effects (e.g., pulmonary disease, cancer, lead poisoning, neurological disorders, birth defects,) and weather related catastrophes (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wild fires) Americans are suffering. With Trump’s attacks on and politicization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency combined with Musk’s Efficiency Commission, we can almost certainly expect that FEMA’s capability to respond to climate disasters will be compromised. We may well look back on George Bush’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and wish we had it so good.
The irony of all this is that Trump supporters themselves will not be immune from the pain. From deportations, to higher prices, job losses, lost health care insurance, cuts in government agencies, less regulation of business, higher deficits, higher pollution, and increasing climate ca
