Trump has stacked the deck against himself
On the first day of his presidency, Donald Trump will face a serious governing challenge of his own creation.
He has promised a tax cut that will, by one estimate, reduce federal revenue by $7 trillion over 10 years. He has promised an infrastructure initiative that may cost an additional trillion. He has promised to rebuild the military. He has effectively promised not to make changes in Social Security and Medicare. And he has promised to move swiftly toward a balanced federal budget.
Taken together, these things can’t be taken together. Trump has made a series of pledges that can’t be reconciled. If he knew this during the campaign, he is cynical. If he is only finding out now, he is benighted.
In either case, something has to give.
Congress and the country normally get a first glimpse of presidential priorities in the administration’s initial budget — hashed out internally, translated into legislative-speak by experts and published in a hefty book.
It makes for stupefying reading. It is a useful document nonetheless. The budget book throws an ocean of campaign pledges against the rocky shore of fiscal reality. Proposals and pledges must be forced into a pie chart. Anyone’s gain, it turns out, is someone’s loss.