National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) is pleased by a few factors Republican nominee Donald Trump mentioned in his economic speech in Detroit, but are more concerned with factors omitted from Trump’s plan. NTUF has long called for simplifying the tax code and reducing the overall tax burden facing Americans, both of which were included in Trump’s economic speech this afternoon.
However, despite Trump’s detailed plan to reduce taxes, he only addressed one side of the fiscal coin. Trump has failed, both in today’s speech and throughout his campaign to properly address federal spending and budgetary reform. With a national debt of $19.4 trillion and the national deficit of $534 billion, Trump must tackle both federal taxation and federal spending if he is going to achieve the level of prosperity and wealth he promised in his “America first” platform.
NTUF has scored the cost of Trump’s campaign platform and determined that his promises would boost federal spending by $22 billion per year he is in office. Trump should couple his tax plan with concrete reforms to cut federal spending like thePenny Plan or other mechanisms to achieve a balanced budget. Taxpayers should expect to hear a more detailed explanation than simply targeting “waste, fraud, and abuse” from the Trump campaign.
