Just yesterday afternoon I speculated that Republicans would try to counteract Trump's trade war by throwing more money at the problem rather than take away Trump's authority to wage his trade war in the first place and, sure enough, they're considering exactly that.
The Washington Post first reported last night that White House staff have been discussing more tax cuts including a possible payroll tax cut.
Several senior White House officials have begun discussing whether to push for a temporary payroll tax cut as a way to arrest an economic slowdown, three people familiar with the discussions said, revealing growing concerns about the economy among President Trump’s top economic aides.
The talks are still in their early stages and have included a range of other tax breaks. The officials also have not decided whether to formally push Congress to approve any of these measures, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal discussions. But the White House increasingly is discussing ideas to boost a slowing economy, they said.
But everything is great, right? There is no economic slowdown according to Trump. Why would the White House be talking about an economic slowdown that doesn't exist?
Trump just asserted that American consumers are "rich" and "loaded up with money," so why would they need another tax cut? Americans already received a tax cut and that tax cut was amazing according to Trump.
I could snark all day, but the point is this would be another deficit-busting bandaid on a problem that won't go away until Trump is gone. The effects of a tax cut would quickly fade but Trump's trade war will stay with us.
A payroll tax cut of just 1 percent could add tens of billions to an annual deficit that's already approaching $1 trillion, because no one loves deficit spending quite like "fiscally responsible" Republicans do.