By Nandita Bose
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – President Donald Trump capped a frantic first week in office on Saturday with a stop in Las Vegas to talk about taxing tips.
Since taking office on Monday, the new Republican president has reversed a host of policies put in place by Democratic predecessor Joe Biden and fulfilled his vow to redo and shrink federal bureaucracy.
During Friday’s visits to disaster areas in North Carolina and California, Trump pledged federal aid to help those states recover from hurricanes and wildfires after adopting an idea to include the Federal Management Agency in the federal response.
In Las Vegas, Trump was expected to discuss a less controversial commitment to end taxation of income from tips and overtime. The front-runner hospitality industry accounts for more than a fifth of jobs.
“Can you remember that little statement about tips?” Trump said Monday during one of several Inauguration Day speeches. “Did anyone remember that little statement? I think we won Nevada because of that statement.”
Michael McDonald, chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, said the idea is attractive to people in the state who face high prices for essential goods like food and gas.
“He’s taking care of the no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. That was something we brought to the community and everyone loved it because we’re all hurting,” McDonald told local television , after greeting Trump on Friday evening.
Trump vowed to pursue an aggressive tax-cutting agenda if re-elected, which may face some hurdles even in a U.S. Congress controlled by his Republicans.
The proposals Trump made on the campaign trail – from extending his 2017 tax cuts to eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits – could cost $7.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Trump is pushing a plan to explicitly use revenue from higher tariffs on imported goods to pay for expanding taxes on dollars. An unprecedented shift is likely to be pitted against Republican budget hawks over the reliability and durability of tariff revenues.
Days before he returned to office, some of his Republican allies in Congress warned that Trump’s aggressive tax-cutting agenda could fall victim to signs of worry in the bond market.
At a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, House Republicans raised concerns that the estimated $4 trillion cost over the next 10 years of extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts could undermine the U.S. government’s ability to implement his $36 trillion in debt to service, debt, debt, that is growing at a pace of $2 trillion per year.
