Based on the latest information from the White House, Trump doesn’t intend to touch retirement savings. Simply adding the cost of health insurance to income would gobsmack people and businesses with sharply higher income and payroll taxes, and would surely face vehement opposition in Congress.
More palatable proposals, designed to tailor the tax preference toward the people who need it most, would save something closer to $400 billion or less over 10 years.
In short, paying for tax cuts as deep as the ones Trump is proposing won’t be easy. Unless he wants to go back to the drawing board and try something completely different, he'll probably have to curb his ambition.
This Bloomberg View column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.