Since launching his third bid for the White House, former President Donald Trump has insisted on the campaign trail that life was better under his administration, and he has vowed to reverse many of the policies enacted since he left office. His successor's sweeping climate change agenda, new restrictions on guns and protections for transgender people would all be on the chopping block, he has said.
In rolling back the calendar to before January 2021, Trump also wants to pick up where his administration left off on many of his first-term priorities, and his ideas will sound familiar to anyone who paid attention to his first campaign eight years ago. He has said he plans to finish building the wall between the US and Mexico that he first promised in 2016, remove all undocumented individuals, implement more tariffs on imports and increase American energy production.
His quest to pick up new support has also led him to dangle promises to specific audiences, including proposing in Las Vegas to eliminate income taxes on tipped wages. He has also floated ambitious but vague ideas to position America for the future by embracing flying cars, promoting cryptocurrency and promising to build 10 new "Freedom Cities.”
But an urge for vengeance is also coursing through Trump's bid to return to Washington, and he is plotting retribution against the systems, institutions and people he believes have wronged him. He and his allies have suggested Trump in a second term could unleash the Justice Department on his political enemies, purge the federal government of disloyal bureaucrats and consolidate power in the executive branch.
Trump will face Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, in November. (See Harris’ campaign promises here.)
Similar promiseTrump has promised to extend the cuts from his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, notably the TCJA’s individual income tax breaks. The former president has also talked about reducing the corporate tax rate to 15%, from 21% – but only for companies that make their products in the US.
“I will make the Trump tax cuts the largest tax cut in history,” the former president said earlier this year at the Black Conservative Federation’s Honors Gala in South Carolina. “We’ll make it permanent and give you a new economic boom.”
I will make the Trump tax cuts the largest tax cut in history.”
He has also proposed a government efficiency commission as a way to reduce government spending and announced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has agreed to lead it. The commission will “develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” Trump said in September remarks at the Economic Club of New York.
Trump has also pledged to repeal Biden’s tax hikes, “immediately tackle” inflation and end what he called Biden’s “war” on American energy production. He has promised to rescind all unspent funds from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which put in place a wide array of climate measures and funneled about $80 billion over 10 years to the Internal Revenue Service.
During a campaign stop in Las Vegas, Trump also pledged to end taxes on tips, a move targeted to appeal to hundreds of thousands of people working in the city.
The former president has also promised to stop taxing Social Security benefits. He has yet to outline a proposal to replace the lost revenue, which could harm the popular entitlement program, as well as Medicare and the federal budget.
In an effort to address housing affordability, Trump has floated a ban on mortgages for undocumented immigrants, claiming that they push up housing costs. CNN has reported that undocumented immigrants, however, make up a tiny portion of the mortgage market.