Written by Nandita Bose
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is getting a hectic first week in office with a stop in Las Vegas on Saturday to talk about cutting taxes on tips, a 2024 campaign promise he made in the gambling and hospitality hub.
Since taking office Monday, the new Republican president has reversed a myriad of policies put in place by Democratic predecessor Joe Biden and moved to make good on his pledge to reshape and shrink the federal bureaucracy.
In visits Friday to disaster areas in North Carolina and California, Trump pledged federal aid to help those states recover from hurricanes and wildfires after an idea floated to shut down the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In Las Vegas, Trump was expected to discuss a less controversial pledge to end taxation of income from tips and overtime, a proposal he first introduced in June as he rounded up service workers in the presidential state of Nevada. The heavy hospitality industry has more than five jobs.
“Can you remember that little statement about tips?” Trump said during one of several Inauguration Day speeches on Monday. “Anyone remember that little statement? I think we won in Nevada because of that statement.”
Michael McDonald, chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, said the idea is attractive to people in the state facing high prices for basic goods like food and gas.
“He cares that there should be no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. This was something we brought to the community, and everyone loved it because we're all hurting,” MacDonald told his local post-Trump on Friday night.
Trump has promised to pursue an aggressive agenda of tax cuts if re-elected, which may face some hurdles even in a US convention controlled by fellow Republicans.
The proposals Trump has advanced on the campaign trail — from extending the 2017 tax cuts to eliminating the tax on tips, overtime and Social Security — could add $7.5 trillion to the nation's debt 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 help pay for an extension of trillions of dollars in tax cuts, an unprecedented shift that will likely face opposition from Republican budget hawks concerned about the reliability and availability of tariff revenue.
Days before his return to office, some of his Republican allies in Congress warned that Trump's aggressive tax snapshot agenda could fall victim to signs of anxiety in the bond market.
In a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, House Republicans aired concerns that the estimated $4 trillion cost over the next 10 years of extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts could undermine the U.S. government's ability to service its $36 trillion debt, which Growing at a pace of $2 trillion per year.
