The Budget Plan of a Charlatan

Sometimes Trump tosses in abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency (budget $8.1 billion). Which brings his potential cuts to $86 billion. The Congressional Budget Office projects this year's deficit at $544 billion.

This would not be so maddening if Trump were not simultaneously pushing a tax cut costing the double-digit trillions of dollars over the next decade. His Republican rivals peddle big tax cuts -- Trump's is huuuger.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates its 10-year cost at $9.5 trillion, or $11.2 trillion with interest. The Tax Foundation gives the Trump plan credit for generating economic growth; as a result, its estimated $12 trillion cost of Trump's plan would drop to a mere -- mere! -- $10 trillion, excluding interest.

How to pay for this? The Tax Policy Center illustrates the magnitude of cuts required. The Trump tax plan would reduce revenues by $1.1 trillion in 2025. Federal spending that year is estimated to be $5.3 trillion, excluding interest payments. Thus, Congress would have to cut spending across-the-board by 21 percent merely to pay for the tax cut, no less bring the budget into balance.

Trump asserts that his cuts "are fully paid for" by cutting deductions for the wealthy and corporate special interests, plus generating extra cash from corporate profits held overseas.

But the Tax Policy Center numbers already account for that new revenue and for limits on deductions Trump has already specified. So how is Trump going to pay the $1 trillion annual cost? TPC Director Leonard Burman tells me that wiping out allindividual and corporate deductions would raise perhaps $700 billion annually at Trump's tax rates. That's all deductions -- charitable contributions, mortgage interest, retirement savings, health insurance. Which would Trump eliminate?

Trump also claims his plan would spur economic growth to offset the cost. "My policies are going to reduce taxes, OK?" he told MSNBC. "And the taxes is going to bring jobs back and we're going to bring jobs back into the country big league, and we're going to have a dynamic economy again."

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculates that paying for Trump's tax plan would require the economy to grow at more than 7 percent annually. The average since 1946 has been 3.3 percent. The Federal Reserve predicts future growth in the 2 percent range.

Trump is a charlatan. Exposing his ignorance is harder than covering his boorishness, but it is no less essential.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.