President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic platforms and strategies include both their announced policies and their past records. With a fiscal cliff approaching in 2025 due to expiration of major provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, economic policies are a key focus of both presidential candidates.

Given that the outcome of this upcoming November election is projected to be close, the goal of this spotlight on Trump is to help credit unions examine the potential economic impacts of either a Trump administration or a Harris administration.

Trump’s Proposed Economic Platform
On the current campaign trail, Trump has outlined several key economic policies:

• No Tax on Tips: Proposes eliminating tips from being taxed as income.
• Increased Child Tax Credit: Proposes raising the child tax credit to $5,000 per child up from the current $2,000.
• Lowering Business Taxes: Proposes lowering business taxes from 21 percent to 20 percent.
• Tariffs: Proposes to raise the baseline tariff rate for all trade partners from 10 percent to 20 percent, and raise Chinese baseline tariffs to 60 percent.
• Income Taxes: Proposes to extend the current Tax Cuts and Jobs Act income tax rates, or to eliminate income taxes and replace them with higher tariffs.
• Home Ownership and Rental Housing: Proposes to open limited portions of federal land for new home construction and create tax incentives to support first-time homebuyers. Previous budgets proposed by Trump while in office recommended deep cuts to low-income rental assistance and proposed eliminating the HOME program, the Community Development Block Grant, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
• Cash Assistance: Trump’s proposed budgets while in office proposed to decrease cash assistance through the Supplemental Security Income and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program.

Trump’s administration also demonstrated key economic policies which can inform credit union leaders on what to expect if he were elected again. The administration effectively sidelined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and focused primarily on creating a deregulatory environment in the financial and labor sectors, both of which have broad impacts on the economy at large.

Credit union leaders can expect a similar trajectory from any new Trump administration, with some variations based on new influences, such as Vice Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance and surrogates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy.

Interested in learning more? Tune-in to the presidential debate on Tuesday, September 10, at 6 p.m. (Pacific) on ABC News.