Even if Congress were to eliminate every dollar of nondefense discretionary spending — projected to be $9.8 trillion over the next 10 years — it still wouldn’t offset the estimated expense of the wide-ranging tax cuts Trump and Vance have floated in recent weeks.

The price tag is based on rough, initial estimates from tax and budget specialists because the Trump campaign hasn’t released detailed policy plans for its tax promises.

The Trump campaign said in a statement the former president will cut wasteful spending and increase energy production to pay for the tax cuts and lower the national debt. The campaign didn’t offer more detail.

Though Democrat Kamala Harris also has proposed a few large tax cuts — she would exempt tips from taxation and expand the child tax credit — the impact on the nation’s finances pales in comparison. She calls for offsetting the lost income, which one think tank estimates at roughly $2 trillion, with tax increases on corporations and wealthy individuals.

Harris is continuing to roll out policy ideas piecemeal, which could add to that total. On Tuesday, she called for an expanded deduction for start-up businesses and her campaign has signaled that more policy plans could be released in the coming weeks. On Wednesday, she proposed increasing the capital gains tax rate to 28% from 20%, which would raise federal revenue.

The sheer magnitude of the Trump campaign’s tax promises make it highly unlikely they all would pass even in a Congress controlled by Trump allies. The Republican ticket’s tax proposals include extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a big expansion to the child tax credit and exemptions for tips and Social Security payments.

“Congress is not going to pass a $10 trillion deficit-financed tax cut,” said Kyle Pomerleau, a senior fellow with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

Republicans have long argued that tax cuts boost growth. But it’s not clear how much Trump’s proposals, which largely cut levies for individuals rather than businesses, would spur new economic activity.

The combined cost of the Trump plans is so big that if Congress were to try to pass the tax cut proposals and keep spending flat, it means they could continue to fund the military, federal benefit programs, like Social Security, pay interest on the debt — and nothing else. That means eliminating major federal agencies that handle duties such as law enforcement, border security, air traffic control, tax collection and international relations.

Trump’s supporters are accustomed to his impromptu, broad-stroke policy pronouncements, while some key Democratic constituency groups demand detailed policy proposals from their candidates and a firm plan offsetting the cost.

Harris and President Joe Biden released a detailed budget proposal this year to cut federal deficits $3 trillion over a decade, by raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and other measures. Those plans mirror some of the offsets Harris has proposed but previously have run into powerful opposition from major business lobbies.

Without those compensating tax increases, the Harris proposals could increase the deficit by as much as $2 trillion over the next decade, according to the University of Pennsylvania Penn Wharton Budget Model.

Tax Agenda

For both candidates, much will hinge on how well their party does in congressional elections, said Wendy Edelberg, a former Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office economist who’s now director of the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project.

The outlook “depends on a million different factors, particularly the balance of power in Congress,” Edelberg said. “Perhaps no policy will get enacted as specifically proposed by either candidate.”

Taxes will be a top agenda item in Congress next year, regardless of who wins the White House or which party controls the House and Senate. Major portions of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — including lower individual rates and deduction for small businesses — expire at the end of 2025, which will force Congress to address the tax code next year.

Trump has made extending his signature tax law the centerpiece of his agenda. The Congressional Budget Office says that would cost $4.6 trillion over 10 years. He’s also floated lowering the corporate rate to 15% from 21%, adding another $874 billion to the total, according to a budget model by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

On the campaign trail, the Republican ticket has verbally floated more tax ideas with hefty price tags: excluding Social Security payments from taxes ($1.8 trillion), exempting taxes on tipped wages ($250 billion) and increasing the $2,000 child tax credit per child to $5,000 ($3 trillion).

Added all up, that’s $10.5 trillion. If Congress were to seriously consider these ideas, official federal scorekeepers would model out the effects, including how the tax cuts interact with one another.

Revenue Raisers

Trump has offered very few options to raise more federal revenue. He has vowed to block any cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits and has called for an increase in military spending. He’s proposed universal tariffs ranging from 10% to 20%. The left-leaning Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center has estimated a 10% across-the-board levy could raise $2.8 trillion over 10 years.

That has the potential to cover some of the cost of his tax cuts, but doesn’t take into account what economists warn are large negative economic growth effects or the cost of compensating farmers for trade retaliation from other countries.

The rising national debt is already stoking concern among investors and ratings agencies.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has warned that higher government budget deficits are on an unsustainable path. In November, Moody’s Investors Service signaled it could downgrade the U.S. from the highest investment grade, Aaa.

CBO projects federal debt held by the public will exceed 100% of the GDP next year and rise to 122% in 10 years without any new tax cuts.

“The fiscally responsible thing for either candidate to do, if they are proposing tax cuts, is to tell us how they are going to pay for them,” said Keith Hall of George Mason University, who once led the nonpartisan CBO.

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Democrats will need some moderate House Republicans to cooperate for the gambit to succeed because the discharge petition would require 218 signatures — a majority of the House — to force action. McCarthy and his leadership team are certain to put maximum pressure on GOP members not to go along, but only five would have to defy the speaker to move the measure forward.

The complex plan has been in the works for months and would allow a vote on a debt ceiling increase by early June.

Democrats set up a multiweek process to force a floor vote on a placeholder bill authored by Rep. Mark DeSaulnier of California that could then be amended to increase the debt limit. DeSaulnier quietly introduced his placeholder bill in January to allow it to sit and “ripen” for Tuesday’s move. Rather than trying to discharge the bill itself, Democrats are using a workaround to discharge a debate rule, a much faster process.

“Congress must urgently pass legislation to raise the borrowing limit and avoid plunging our nation into a recession, driving up unemployment and crashing the stock market,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a letter to his colleagues announcing the move. “House Democrats are working to make sure we have all options at our disposal to avoid a default.”

McCarthy will sit down with President Joe Biden and other congressional leaders next Tuesday to discuss the debt ceiling. So far the prospects of a deal appear low because Biden continues to insist on a no-strings-attached debt increase and McCarthy is demanding enactment of the $4.8 trillion in budget cuts the House GOP passed last week.

Former House parliamentarian Thomas Wickham, now with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that the Democrats’ move would set up a debt ceiling vote on June 6 at the earliest, potentially after the default date. That date could move up if the House stays in session for more days this month to confront the debt ceiling, or if a determined group of 218 members forces more session days.

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(Bloomberg staff writer Emily Wilkins contributed to this story.)

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The former president has been posting exhortations on social media for Republicans to “be tough” and not “give in” as the U.S. approaches running out of cash later this year, asserting the party “can get back almost everything” Democrats won legislatively under President Joe Biden.

Republicans who control the House have been demanding deep spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt cap. Biden and congressional Democrats are insisting that the limit be raised without conditions.

The matter could come to a head this summer. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen informed congressional leaders on Thursday that the U.S. had reached the debt limit and has begun taking special accounting maneuvers. Last week, she said the steps would likely tide the Treasury over at least until early June.

As he mounts his third White House run, Trump is again inserting himself into a high-profile political fight, despite drawing blame for midterm losses by his hand-picked candidates that led to disappointing overall results for the GOP. Critics say he’s encouraging a game of chicken that could be catastrophic for the U.S. financial system and economy.

“For a former president to be part of an effort that is literally creating a crisis that doesn’t have to exist is not political leadership,” said Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer, who has studied the Republican Party. “It’s the opposite.”

A Trump spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Some GOP strategists doubt Trump’s entreaties will spur Republicans to do anything they otherwise wouldn’t do, especially after a group of them rebuffed calls from the former president to support Kevin McCarthy’s bid for House speaker earlier this month.

“His influence is waning on the Hill,” said Doug Heye, a former aide to senior Republicans and a Trump critic. “He’s only important if we pay attention to him.”

But McCarthy credited Trump for ultimately helping sway the final holdout conservatives to vote “present” on the 15th and decisive ballot. Unlike Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who does not need the support of Trump-aligned Republicans to keep his job, McCarthy is beholden to them. Under a rules change agreed to this month, conservatives may be able to oust him with a floor vote at any time.

McCarthy’s ability to maneuver is also circumscribed by another deal he cut with ultraconservatives to win his job: A commitment that no debt-ceiling increase would be allowed without a budget agreement or “commensurate” fiscal reforms.

For now, McCarthy is hoping to pressure Biden into engaging in budget-cutting talks to come to a compromise on the debt ceiling and address federal spending.

Trump could play an active role in rounding up votes for those GOP plans, or hang back and attempt to claim credit if they pass. Or he could help steer talks to a dead end to try and ensure a default, triggering economic turmoil for Biden as Trump seeks the Republican nomination for 2024. Biden has said he plans to seek reelection but has not yet made a formal announcement.

Key figures from the Trump administration are also playing a role. Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows has been advising House Freedom Caucus members on the matter, and former Trump budget director Russ Vought and his Center for Renewing America have advocated focusing on cuts to discretionary spending rather than Medicare and Social Security.

Biden, for one, has signaled frustration and optimism. In a speech Monday, he touted the falling deficit and called deficit hawks “fiscally demented,” without specifying who he was referring to.

“The president has been clear — he will not allow Republicans to take the economy hostage or make working Americans pay the price for their schemes to benefit wealthy Americans and also special interests,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday, calling it the “basic duty of Congress, to get that done.”

In the event of a default, Biden would likely take at least some of the political blame. Yet the White House’s position that it’s Congress’s responsibility to raise the borrowing cap could provide the president with a measure of political insulation.

The Republican-led House is a much steeper challenge than the Senate, where Biden’s Democrats hold a narrow majority. McConnell is arguably closer to Biden than to Trump, who has launched racist attacks at McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who served in Trump’s Cabinet.

Trump has also repeatedly criticized McConnell for not using the debt ceiling for negotiating purposes with Democrats.

Biden sent a signal earlier this month that partisan gridlock could be overcome, joining McConnell to celebrate funding for a bridge between Ohio and the Republican’s home state of Kentucky.

It was those two who spearheaded a deal on a debt-limit increase in 2011, when a weekslong standoff prompted Standard & Poor’s to issue the first-ever downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating.

The limit was suspended in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and reset at a higher level again after each freeze before being raised in 2021, according to the Congressional Research Service — allowing the nation’s red ink to swell by almost $8 trillion under Trump.

“What they really want to do is to use the debt ceiling as a brinkmanship sort of negotiation to do serious spending cuts, including cuts in Social Security and Medicare, and that’s a non-starter for Democrats,” Rep. Gwen Moore, a Wisconsin Democrat, told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday.

“The Republicans protest too much, methinks, about our debt because our debt has increased under Republican leadership.”

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Pelosi said the burden is on President Donald Trump to push forward on stimulus talks and get reluctant Republicans to go along with any eventual deal reached with the White House on a nearly $2 trillion aid package.

“We could do that before the election, if the president wants to,” Pelosi said Friday in an interview on MSNBC.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Pelosi’s primary negotiating partner, said there’s been significant progress but blamed the California Democrat for holding up an agreement by not compromising on her party’s priorities.

“We’ve offered compromises,” Mnuchin told reporters at the White House. “The speaker, on a number of issues, is still dug in. If she wants to compromise, there will be a deal.”

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said on Twitter Friday that members of the committees involved in stimulus legislation and their staffs would work through the weekend. Pelosi and Mnuchin “will speak again once additional progress is made,” he said.

With the talks slogging on, the Republican-controlled Senate is set to leave town on Monday after voting on confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. The House, where Democrats have the majority, is already out. Though members of both chambers could be called back for a vote with 24 hours notice, that scenario is increasingly unlikely a week before the election.

Despite White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows telling reporters he hoped an accord could be reached “in the next day or so,” Senate Republicans saw little chance for either a deal or a vote.

“At this point in time, Friday before the Monday we’re scheduled to leave, it’d take a colossal get-together, just a huge get-together, to put a stimulus package together, and I don’t see it happening,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby.

“That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen,” the Alabama Republican added. “Probability, no. Possibility, very, very slim.”

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 GOP leader in the chamber, said there probably isn’t enough time for the House and Senate to process and pass stimulus legislation before the Nov. 3 election, but it might be easier “once the dust settles and the smoke clears from the election.”

The talks have been hung up on many of the same sticking points that have bedeviled negotiations for months: Democratic demands for substantial aid to state and local governments and Republican insistence on a liability shield for employers on COVID-19 infections.

Trump again on Friday derided Pelosi’s insistence on including aid to state and local governments, and accused her of wanting to stall a stimulus package until after the Nov. 3 election.

“She wants to bail out poorly run Democrat states and that’s a problem, because you’re talking about tremendous amounts of money and we don’t want to reward areas of our country who have not done a good job,” Trump said at the White House.

With the pace of talks dragging, resistance from Senate Republicans is building, and Trump’s ability to twist arms into supporting a deal appears to be waning. Now some House Democrats are telling Pelosi that they don’t want to vote on legislation before the election if the Senate won’t do so, according to a party official.

Pelosi said in an interview at the Capitol Friday that she and Mnuchin are waiting for congressional committees to report back on lower-level talks before having another call. Aides to the relevant committees say that there is little they can do until they get clearer guidance from Pelosi and Mnuchin however.

“The ball’s not moving much right now,” White House economic director Larry Kudlow said on Bloomberg Television. “The clock is ticking.”

He also questioned whether there needed to be a comprehensive stimulus bill now. “There’s no reason why we have to have this humongous bill, which covers so much ground,” Kudlow said.

Pelosi has said that the House still has time to vote before the election if the administration makes further compromises. But the Senate might not have time to act.

Putting off votes on a stimulus package until after the election raises the risk that the Trump administration will be less inclined or able to push a package through the GOP Senate. That likely would be amplified if Trump loses to Democrat Joe Biden and Republicans lose their Senate majority — leaving action on stimulus for the pandemic-stricken U.S. economy until late January at the earliest.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted that Trump would be able to persuade Senate Republicans to back a compromise deal, even though GOP leaders in the chamber have said there isn’t support for a package of the size being talked about in the negotiations.

The House impeachment managers presented their case that the Trump abused his power and obstructed Congress, and the White House on Tuesday argued that the two articles fall short of the constitutional standard for impeachment.

Here are the next steps for the Senate trial:

Senators submit questions for prosecution and defense

The trial will continue Wednesday and Thursday with 16 hours of written questions from senators for the defense and prosecution. The trial’s presiding officer, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, will read the written queries out loud for lawyers of each side to respond on the Senate floor.

Leaders of both parties have requested suggestions for questions from their members so they can eliminate duplicates and ensure their party’s key issues are raised.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to alternate between questions from Republicans and Democrats. Roberts suggested that the House prosecution and Trump’s defense limit their answers to five minutes, following the precedent of Bill Clinton’s 1999 Senate trial.

The central issue: whether to depose new witnesses

Senator questions will be followed by the first chance for a vote on calling additional witnesses, probably on Friday. This is the moment that will determine whether the trial could wrap up this week or stretch into next month — with possible surprises for both sides.

The trial’s rules allow four hours of debate, divided equally between the prosecution and the defense, on seeking documents and witness testimony. There would then be separate votes on whether to subpoena specific witnesses and documents.

Democrats need to persuade a simple majority of senators, which means at least four Republicans, to vote in favor of allowing the Senate to consider additional testimony.

There would also be an opportunity for senators to offer other motions, according to the Senate rules adopted for the trial.

That could include a motion from Trump’s defense team to dismiss the case, although GOP leaders have said Trump would be better served by a full trial ending in acquittal. If no witnesses are called, one of the motions could be to set a time and date for final deliberations and the vote on Trump’s guilt or innocence.

If a simple majority supports deposing additional witnesses, senators would have to vote on individual witnesses or groups of witnesses. Schumer said he plans to call former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, among other administration officials. Some Republicans have said that calling Trump aides to testify would mean they should also depose former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, to testify about their work in Ukraine.

Senate trial concludes with vote on two charges

Once the Senate hears from all approved witnesses, or if the motion to hear additional testimony falls short of a simple majority, the trial would move toward its conclusion. Senators would deliberate for an unspecified amount of time, then take a vote on each article of impeachment.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and it would take 67 senators to convict Trump on either charge and remove him from office. Since that would require at least 20 Republicans to vote against the president, Trump is likely to be acquitted.

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