Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Harris have floated a succession of spending and tax ideas, raising concerns in Congress that there is no end in sight to the huge annual deficits.
President Trump's repeal of the cap on deductions for state and local taxes, a key part of his tax reform bill, is just the latest expensive proposal to emerge during the campaign.
Trump has proposed $8 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, but that would only be offset by $900 billion in revenue from reversing Biden-era clean energy tax cuts and $4 trillion in new tariffs, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
Harris has called for higher taxes on the wealthy, but she has also promoted big-ticket ideas like a $25,000 down payment for first-time homebuyers and a $50,000 tax cut for entrepreneurs.
In total, experts say her proposals would increase the budget deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
The exploding costs of both candidates' policy platforms have experts predicting $2 trillion in annual deficits into the future.
“No one in power outside of a very small handful of us is that worried about the debt, that's a fact,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
“Both parties have had terrible policies and I think both parties are about equally responsible for the debt. The Trump administration added $8 trillion to the debt. The Biden-Harris administration will add $8 trillion to the debt. It's about the same amount,” Paul said. “Neither party has proposed much in the way of spending cuts or spending restraints.”
Paul said Trump's deficit record is one of the reasons he has not yet supported his presidential bid.
Some Democrats are frustrated that Trump and Harris enticed voters on the campaign trail with promises of lavish spending and big tax cuts that could come at a steep cost.
“Nobody is talking about the $35.5 trillion debt. It's just a shame and I don't understand why nobody is talking about it,” said Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a longtime Democrat who recently became an independent.
“Every family cares. … But it's not like here. No one cares. All they care about is getting more votes and spending more money,” he said of the lack of interest from most of his Democratic and Republican colleagues in curbing the deficit. “It's a shame.”
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who is facing a tough re-election fight, said he is open to exempting tipped wages from taxation and raising the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, but doesn't want to add to the debt.
“The real question here is what the next round of tax reform looks like,” he said. “We need to make sure that tax reform doesn't end up increasing the debt.”
As for the predicted sharp increase in the budget deficit over the next decade, Tester acknowledged that “both sides share the blame.”
The Congressional Budget Office projected in June that the annual budget deficit would reach $1.9 trillion in 2024 and eventually rise to $2.9 trillion by 2034.
The agency projects cumulative deficits will total $22.1 trillion from 2025 to 2034, meaning the national debt will exceed $50 trillion by the middle of the next decade.
“In the short term, I'm not very optimistic. On the spending side, there's virtually no talk of addressing the big drivers of the deficit,” said Erica York, senior economist and research director at the Tax Foundation's Federal Tax Policy Center.
The Tax Foundation estimates that extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), President Trump's signature tax reform law and a top Republican priority, would cost $4.2 trillion over the next decade.
In addition, President Trump proposed this week to eliminate the cap on the SALT deduction that was included in the 2017 tax law to contain costs.
The proposal would cost between $1.6 trillion and $1.2 trillion over the next decade, tax experts say.
Additionally, President Trump and Harris have called for making tip income tax-free, which would increase the budget deficit by $100 billion to $200 billion over ten years.
President Trump has even floated the idea of exempting Social Security benefits from taxes, which would increase the deficit by $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion over 10 years, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“On the tax side, we're just piling on promises of tax cuts,” York said. “Instead of even having a discussion of, 'Should we offset some of the cost of the TCJA extension,' we're having a discussion about how many tax cuts we can stack on top of the TCJA extension. It's just going in the wrong direction.”
Trump has also proposed other potentially costly spending proposals, such as having the federal government cover the costs of in vitro fertilization treatments.
To fund his ideas, Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have discussed repealing the clean energy tax credit enacted in Biden's Inflation Control Act of 2022, which would raise roughly $900 billion in tax revenue.
President Trump has also proposed raising tariffs by about $4 trillion, including a 60% tariff on imports from China and a 20% tariff on imports from other countries.
“If fully implemented, it would impose a 60% tariff on China plus a 20% tariff on everything. [else]”We probably won't get anywhere near $4 trillion out of it,” York said, “but we'll still be adding nearly $4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.”
President Trump's proposal to eliminate the cap on the SALT deduction is already facing opposition from Republicans in Congress.
“I don't think most Republicans would support this. We supported eliminating the SALT deduction because it subsidizes high-tax states. We shouldn't be doing that,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
Republicans in Congress are also skeptical of Trump's plans to sharply raise tariffs on foreign imports, warning that the costs would be passed on to consumers.
“Unfortunately, tariffs may be necessary when a country like China is dumping products like steel into the United States. [the] “The tariffs create the illusion that they're free. The cost of the tariffs is going to be passed on to consumers, and that's the concern,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Harris has proposed raising taxes by $4.1 trillion from 2025 to 2034, but after accounting for revenue losses due to slowing economic growth, her proposal would raise net revenues by $642 billion over the decade, according to the Tax Foundation.
That's not even enough to cover her ambitious agenda, which includes expanding the child tax credit, expanding the earned income tax credit, exempting tip income from taxation and extending the health insurance premium tax credit enacted under the Affordable Care Act.
The Tax Foundation estimates that Harris' proposals would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, while a budget model from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania estimates the deficit could be $1.2 trillion, or even $2 trillion if additional economic damage is taken into account.
