Donald Trump Proposes Eliminating Income Tax
Source: Newsweek
Published Nov 28, 2025 at 03:38 AM EST updated Nov 28, 2025 at 05:37 AM EST
President Donald Trump has proposed "almost completely" cutting income tax, which he said could be achieved thanks to the effects of his trade policies.
In a Thanksgiving message delivered from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the president referenced the investment commitments that had been made by other nations, pledges from companies to expand their production presence in the U.S., as well as the revenue accrued from his import taxes.
"Over the next couple of years, I think we'll substantially be cutting—and maybe cutting out completely—income tax," Trump said. "We could be almost completely cutting it because the money we're taking in is going to be so large." Newsweek contacted the White House via email outside of regular hours for comment.
Why It Matters
The administration has several times floated slashing or even abolishing income tax thanks to tariffs, though experts broadly agree that the revenue-generating effects of these policies would be unable to match the nearly $2.7 trillion the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) generated last year through this form of taxation.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-proposes-eliminating-income-tax-11123769
= new reply since forum marked as read
but apparently the "real" fiscal hawks don't like the "debt", which is actually a GOP policy point in order to justify "lower taxes".
The irony is that (D) President Bill Clinton handed Shrub a budget SURPLUS (off the backs of government workers), and away that went thanks to Shrub, with the creation of a monstrosity known as the "Department of Homeland Security", and 2 wars that went on for 20 years!! 
GMTA 
which may make it the most idiotic thing anyone has ever said.
Total tariff revenue for FY2025 was about $195 million. The highest monthly total was $30 million. Project that over a full year and it's still just $360 million.
The revenue from individual income taxes only was $2.66 Trillion! The revenue from ALL federal taxes was about $5 Trillion!!
Therefore, to replace JUST the individual income tax, would require tariff revenue to increase by 9 times the level of the highest month thus far AND continue at that level for a full year. To replace ALL federal taxes would require tariff revenue to increase by 16 to 17 times the highest monthly level so far and continue at that level.
In other words, the idea that tariff revenue could replace income tax revenue is not just insane, it's BATSHIT INSANE!! CUCKOO BANANAS INSANE!! NEED TO BE LOCKED UP IN A RUBBER ROOM INSANE!!!
Clinton after George HW Bush
Obama after George W Bush
Biden after Trump
etc.
You can add JFK after Dwight Eisenhower too. I know my mom used to occasionally mention that little recession that happened in the '50s (1957 - 1958).
(from here - The Forgotten 1957 Pandemic and Recession)
And get a load of this shit - NYT from 67 years ago -
___________
In Chicago Address, He Calls Them the Champions of Inflation and Spending
___________
AGAIN SCORES 'RADICALS'
___________
Eisenhower Details Record of Expanding Economy in Urging G.O.P. Victory Eisenhower Charges Democrats With Selling 'Doubt and Fear'
By Felix Belair Jr. special To the New York Times.
Oct. 23, 1958
CHICAGO, Oct. 22-President Eisenhower made another ungloved attack on the Democratic party and its candidates tonight. In an address to Republican precinct workers at the International Amphitheatre here, the President sought to identify the Democratic party as the champion of inflation, "frantically merchandising doubt and fear.". The speech was televised nationally and broadcast to the Midwest area by the Columbia Broadcasting System. To a dinner audience of 4,500 party workers, swollen by standees, the President gave his Administration credit for having prevented an economic recession from becoming a major depression. This was done, he said, while staving off "an avalanche of Federal spending" sponsored by Democrats in Congress.
Democrats Called 'Radicals'
The President charged that the "dominant wing" of the Democratic party was composed of “radicals" and "those of little faith." He said: "The most deceptive notion taught by self-styled liberals is that when the economy starts] to slow up, only a vast outpouring of your tax dollars will pump us out of the trouble."
President Eisenhower read the record of his Administration in: its management of the domestic economy, keeping the nation's defenses strong and keeping it at peace. He then said this was the reason voters would return Republican candidates to state and Congressional offices in next month's elections. The President was interrupted repeatedly by applause during his address. The most prolonged show of approval came when he remarked that spending public funds to finance the nation out of a business recession was like "trying to live on new debts." Another prolonged applause came when, in describing Republican goals in domestic policy, he said that the party's intention was "to help our working men and women drive racketeers and hoodlums out of American labor."
Earlier in the day the President told a meeting of Republican women voters and workers in the Blackstone Hotel here that the country's best chance of remaining at peace and avoiding a major war was to "stay firm and strong and always ready to conciliate." But his chief emphasis in his address tonight was on the need to keep the economy strong. It appeared from the President's talk that his main purpose was to combat a major charge of Democratic candidates that his Administration had brought on the "Eisenhower recession," which began in the summer of 1957.
(snip)
See... that ain't the "Eisenhower" that gets presented today. It's more distilled into his "MIC" remarks and not the rest of what is still a loon GOP type of thinking.
Why does this Oct. 23, 1958 front page of the NYT look like something you'd see today in 2025?
ETA - if you look at that St. Louis Fed BEA graph, there was a recession during the latter part of the Nixon 2nd term/Ford term, before 1976, where Watergate apparently ruled the day but it all still lead to Carter.
