Trump is reaching the ‘But wait, there’s more!’ phase of the campaign

There’s nothing sadder than an aging salesman trying to close one last deal.

Think of Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” desperately trying to get that desk job in New York City, Shelley Levene in “Glengarry Glen Ross” pleading with his boss for “the good leads” or poor ol’ Gil from “The Simpsons” anytime he’s on screen.

You can now add to the list Donald Trump, who’s lately reaching new peaks of sweaty salesmanship on the campaign trail as he seeks to turn around a race that he appears to believe he could lose.

Trump’s campaign has reached the “But wait, there’s more!” phase of the infomercial, as he has recently tossed off promises to abolish taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security; make in-vitro fertilization free to patients; cap credit card interest rates; cut car insurance rates and restore the state and local tax deduction in addition to the campaign agenda he already outlined.

If this is the ShamWow campaign, these pledges are more sham than wow.

But if this is the ShamWow campaign, these pledges are more sham than wow.

When normal campaigns roll out a big campaign promise, they give white papers to reporters ahead of time, add a new bit to the stump speech, roll out a new section on the website, send out press releases and post about it on social media. But Trump’s campaign pledges have come off the cuff at rallies, in interviews and on Truth Social, seemingly in response to some recent event or news item.

As a result, there’s very little chance that Trump would actually try to enact any of these proposals — assuming that he’d even have the ability to do so — since they tend to cut against Republican orthodoxy, would cost at least $3.2 trillion in total and in some cases wouldn’t even have much political benefit for his party.

Some of the ideas have been proposed in the past by Democrats, although typically with some acknowledgment of the trade-offs and guardrails to limit negative side effects. Trump’s proposals have none of these details, unlike a series of moves similarly aimed at voters’ pocketbooks that President Joe Biden rolled out when he was seeking re-election.

Here’s a closer look at seven recent Trump proposals, from most to least likely to actually happen.

Trump called for ending taxes on tips at a rally in Las Vegas in June, which makes sense because Nevada is a potential swing state with a lot of service workers who live on tips. Vice President Kamala Harris followed suit in August with a more detailed plan that may be refined even further. The Center for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s plan would cost $250 billion over the next decade, while Harris’ might cost $100 to $200 billion. Advocates say it’s hard for the IRS to collect taxes on tips anyway, but critics worry it would encourage more businesses to switch to a tipping model.

Likelihood: Decent. The idea has quickly gained bipartisan steam, although the details of the final plan will be key to its success.

Trump floated the idea of ending taxes on Social Security benefits in an all-caps message on Truth Social in July and a “Fox & Friends” interview. Democrats suggested the idea first, though their proposals are more detailed and are part of broader reforms that would pay for the change by hiking the payroll tax on the wealthy. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s proposal — which so far does not include any offsets to pay for it — would cost $1.6 to $1.8 trillion over the next decade.

Likelihood: Low, unless Democrats win both chambers of Congress at some point and decide to pursue it.

Trump pitched exempting overtime pay from taxes at a rally in Tucson, Arizona, earlier this month. It’s unclear whether he meant just income tax or also payroll taxes, which fund Medicare and Social Security, or if there would be any guardrails to prevent, say, high-priced lawyers from reclassifying themselves as hourly workers so they can get a huge tax break. Were Trump to follow through (and he’d need Congress to do it), the conservative Tax Foundation estimates a cost somewhere between $227 billion and $1.1 trillion over the next decade.

Likelihood: Low. There doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for this idea on Capitol Hill.

Trump called for restoring the state and local tax deduction (also known as SALT) in a Truth Social post earlier this week before a rally on Long Island. The deduction, which allowed people in high-tax states like New York and California to deduct that cost on their federal income taxes, was capped at $10,000 in Trump’s 2017 tax reform law. Lifting the cap would mostly benefit wealthier residents of blue states, so it would be a heavy lift to get Republicans to agree to do it, though Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York has supported it. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has projected that eliminating the cap would cost $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

Likelihood: Very low. It’s unclear why Republicans in Congress would rush to bail out wealthy residents of mostly blue states from a cap that they created under Trump.

At a rally in New York this week, Trump called for a temporary cap of around 10% on credit card interest rates. Again, the former president did not offer any details on who would be eligible or how long the cap would last. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first proposed a cap of 15% in 2019, while Republican Sen. Josh Hawley proposed a cap of 18% in 2023. Advocates argue a cap could help consumers with payments on the nation’s $1.14 trillion in credit card debt, but critics point out that banks might respond by restricting cards to people with high credit scores.

Likelihood: Very low. Republicans aren’t going to be eager to go along with price controls, and banks will mount a concerted effort to block it.

In an interview with NBC News in August, Trump said that he’d have either the federal government or insurance companies pay the full cost of in-vitro fertilization. He floated the proposal, for which he offered no other details, as Republicans have taken heat for an Alabama Supreme Court decision earlier this year that briefly halted IVF services in the state. Still, Senate Republicans have twice blocked a Democratic bill to provide a nationwide right to IVF, so Trump would have to convince his own party to put anything in place. NBC News estimated that a single year of IVF treatments would cost $7.8 billion.

Likelihood: Extremely low. Republicans are not going to embrace an insurance mandate or federal spending for a procedure that’s unpopular with anti-abortion advocates.

Trump said in a post on X earlier this week that he would cut car insurance rates in half. He offered no details on how this would work, as car insurance rates are regulated by state insurance commissioners based on actuarial data and expectations for the future. Insurance industry experts say there’s very little Trump could actually do as president to cut insurance rates, other than maybe working to make roads safer or limiting compensation in crash-related lawsuits, and those would make only a marginal difference.

Likelihood: Nearly impossible. Trump has no authority to set rates, Republicans will balk at price controls and insurance companies will push back hard.

Some of these ideas might be worth exploring in the future as part of a more serious-minded discussion of the issues.

These proposals all sound great at first. But they would either blow a hole in the federal deficit or would require more government controls, things Republicans ostensibly oppose. It’s extremely unlikely that he would be able to pass them if he’s elected alongside a GOP-controlled Congress, the most likely scenario for a Trump win.

Some of these ideas might be worth exploring in the future as part of a more serious-minded discussion of the issues, but that would require an attention to detail that Trump has never shown in any of his three campaigns for president or his four years in office as president.

But when a salesman starts telling you all the extra things you’ll get when you sign on the dotted line, you have to wonder what you’re actually buying.