President-elect Donald J. Trump made a number of personal finance promises during his presidential campaign. How many will he try to — and be able to — keep?
The answer will depend in part on the outcome of races in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Despite Republican gains, both houses are close enough to a 50-50 split that just a few elected officials could impose their will and lead to certain policies that look nothing like Mr. Trump’s campaign agenda.
It will also depend on the courts. Last year, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s attempt to cancel certain federal student loans, ruling that Congress had not provided clear enough authority to take such a major action. The court may — or may not — restrict some of Mr. Trump’s actions in the same way.
Then there is Mr. Trump’s plan for increased tariffs. It’s hard to estimate whether your financial situation will improve in his second term without knowing how much success he will have in putting more tariffs into place — and how much consumer prices might rise as a result. The markets may be a kind of brake as well, depending on how investors react to his plans.
Candidates say plenty of things, mean most of them, follow through on many of those and successfully meet a fraction of their goals.
Mr. Trump is not like most politicians, but all we have to go on is the record of what he said he would attempt if he won. What follows is that record.
Taxes
During Mr. Trump’s first term, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which ushered in a number of big changes. Federal income tax rates fell for most people, the standard deduction nearly doubled and the child tax credit rose and became available to more people in many instances.
But many of the changes in that bill last only through the end of 2025. Congress will need to act to extend them, and when it acts, it could make additional changes.
Mr. Trump’s campaign website has links to the Republican platform, which says the party plans to make the standard deduction and child tax credit changes permanent, plus “pursue additional tax cuts.”
The platform also calls for an end to taxes on tips for restaurant and hospitality workers. During the campaign, Mr. Trump also floated the possibility of exempting overtime pay and Social Security benefits from income taxes — and not levying income taxes at all.
The 2017 law created a $10,000 cap on the deduction that people can take on their federal tax return for certain state and local taxes if they itemize their deductions. Many residents of high-tax states like New York, California and New Jersey took a big hit.
Though Mr. Trump signed this so-called SALT provision into law, in September he signaled his intent to reverse the change.
Student Loans
A Trump administration is expected to unwind much of Mr. Biden’s broad-based student debt relief.
The president-elect has also vowed to shut down the Department of Education altogether, but that’s an unlikely proposition since lawmakers would have to vote to disband the agency, our colleague Dana Goldstein reported.
But sweeping changes within the agency won’t be surprising. This year, a group of Republican-led states challenged Mr. Biden’s new student loan repayment program, which generated lower loan payments than previous plans. Known as SAVE, the income-driven repayment program was frozen by the courts, which leaves its eight million enrollees in financial limbo until the legal situation is resolved.
Mr. Trump seems unlikely to defend Mr. Biden’s SAVE program, though he did propose an income-driven repayment plan in his 2020 budget. But that plan was more expensive for borrowers — it capped monthly payments at 12.5 percent of income, higher than Mr. Biden’s SAVE plan at 5 percent. In the same budget, Mr. Trump proposed shuttering the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to new enrollees; the plan eliminates the student debt of government and nonprofit employees after 120 qualifying payments.
During his presidency, Mr. Trump rolled back or weakened many of the borrower-focused initiatives created during the Obama administration, including a program that canceled education debt for students who were defrauded by their schools and another that held schools accountable if their graduates didn’t earn enough to pay off their student loans.
Housing
The Republican platform that Mr. Trump linked to from his campaign website promised to “promote homeownership through tax incentives and support for first-time buyers,” but it did not provide details.
Presidents do not dictate mortgage rates, and the cost of a loan can vary widely during any four-year period. Rates for the standard 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 6.79 percent this week, their highest since July. Mortgage rates often mirror the yield of 10-year Treasury bonds, and that figure had its biggest one-day gain in over two years on Wednesday. The platform also mentioned opening “limited portions of federal lands”for the construction of homes. According to Mr. Trump’s campaign website, he plans to propose a national contest for entrants to help develop up to 10 new cities — about the size of the District of Columbia — on that land.
Health Insurance
During his presidency, Mr. Trump tried but failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, though he took steps that weakened it, for example, signing a law that eliminated the individual mandate, which required most people to maintain insurance coverage or face a tax penalty.
He also enabled the expansion of short-term plans, which didn’t meet the A.C.A.’s standards — those plans were cheaper but often provided thinner coverage that could be denied altogether because of pre-existing conditions (including pregnancy).
Americans could still see big changes if his administration does nothing to the A.C.A.: Tax subsidies that reduce the price of health care insurance for people who buy coverage through the Obamacare marketplaces could soon disappear.
The subsidies were passed as a temporary measure in 2021 and extended by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. They are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, and the Trump campaign and many influential Republicans have said they don’t support extending them. That means 20 million people who benefit would probably end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more, and individuals earning $100,000 or more would lose access to federal assistance.
An estimated 3.4 million people will lose insurance if subsidies drop and prices rise, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. Trump has also said he would push for insurers to cover in vitro fertilization.
Social Security
Mr. Trump’s campaign has said he wouldn’t cut “one penny” from Social Security. But his policy proposals thus far would put the program on shakier ground, and “dramatically worsen” the program’s finances, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan policy group.
Social Security has long faced a financing problem, in large part because of demographic shifts. More baby boomers are collecting payments, and those retirees are living longer. At the same time, a declining birthrate has produced fewer workers contributing to payroll taxes, which is the primary source of Social Security funds.
The trust fund that pays retiree benefits is projected to be depleted in 2033. At that point, incoming tax revenue will be enough to pay out 79 percent of scheduled benefits — if nothing is done, all beneficiaries would see their checks shrink by 21 percent.
There are two ways to solve this problem: raising taxes or trimming benefits, or some combination therein, both of which require congressional approval.
But Mr. Trump has proposed cutting various taxes that help pay for the program, including ending taxes on overtime pay and tips, which would reduce payroll taxes. He also wants to end the taxation of Social Security benefits — a move that would put more money into retirees’ pockets but eliminate another revenue source.
His plan to place steep tariffs on imports could raise prices, which means benefit payouts could also rise because they receive cost-of-living adjustments, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Deporting unauthorized immigrants, another Trump promise, would cut the number of immigrant workers paying into the program. Taken together, those policies would accelerate the trust funds’ insolvency and cause deeper benefit cuts, the group said.
In the past, Mr. Trump has said he would be open to cuts on social insurance programs like Social Security, but then walked back those statements.
Medicare
Mr. Trump said he would not cut Medicare and vowed to strengthen the program — a reversal from previous statements — but hasn’t provided many details. He has said he doesn’t want to raise the age for eligibility and supports financing home care benefits.
Like Social Security, Medicare faces financing shortfalls, and it is expected to be unable to pay all of its hospital bills starting in 2036. Mr. Trump’s tax reductions accelerated the depletion of a trust fund that pays for care in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health and hospice, according to KFF, a health policy research group.
It’s also unclear what would happen with some of the most contentious provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which allows Medicare to negotiate some drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. That could lower consumer prices and save the program money. (It also limits monthly insulin costs to $35 for beneficiaries and caps out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs at $2,000.) The law also requires drug companies to make payments to Medicare if they increase their prices faster than inflation.
Mr. Trump could face pressure from some Republicans who have been critical of the program, though it’s not entirely clear where he stands.
In 2020, Mr. Trump established a temporary, voluntary model to limit insulin costs; fewer than half of all eligible Medicare Part D plans chose to participate, according to KFF. The Trump administration passed rules that allowed states to import prescription drugs from Canada, though many of the priciest drugs were excluded, and expanded coverage for telehealth.
Medicaid
In his first term, Mr. Trump’s budget proposals called for major cuts to Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program that covers about 75 million Americans, most of them low-income. He also let states cap Medicaid spending, and approved waivers that made eligibility dependent on work requirements, which the Biden administration withdrew.
Long-Term Care
The high cost of care is an existential concern for many older people and those aiming to live a lot longer, and many of them hope to stay in their homes as they age. The Republican platform that Mr. Trump pointed to from his campaign website signals an intent to “shift resources back” to at-home care.
Ongoing shortages of home health-care workers are a particular challenge for low-income seniors who rely on Medicaid. Waiting lists are common.
The Republican platform also mentions support for family caregivers who are not paid for helping their relatives. This would come in the form of tax credits, though the platform does not specify their size.
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