One of the biggest obstacles to Trump’s proposed budget: Trump’s proposed tax plan

Impact

On Tuesday, details of President Donald Trump's first major budget proposals became public and they're already making headlines. There are deep cuts to social programs and spurious accounting. But Trump's budget proposal is poised to come up against a major obstacle: Trump's tax plan — or, at least, major parts of it. 

Back in April, Trump released a one-page outline of his tax reform plan. It dramatically reduced individual and corporate tax rates while eliminating certain other taxes entirely. Some outlets have chosen to include those previously announced cuts while reporting on the newly released budget details. 

But, as Binyamin Applebaum of the New York Times noted on Twitter, Trump's new budget seems to have left out a few of those promised tax cuts and relies on current tax revenue to reach its already rosy budget projections.

For instance, the Trump budget plan continues to project revenues collected from the estate tax, a tax on estate transfers of over $5.5 million that Trump wants to eliminate entirely. 

Critics have already pointed out that Trump's budget plan predicts near-impossible levels economic growth in order to pay for its tax cuts and increased military spending. If the administration is also counting revenue from taxes that they want to do away with, the potential budget shortfalls could be even greater.