Donald Trump reveals more details of his scaled-back tax plan

He said his push to lower taxes, reduce federal regulations, reshape trade deals and unleash the American energy industry will bolster economic activity – increasing wages and creating countless more jobs.

Trump predicted at least 3.5 percent annual growth in the gross domestic product if he is elected but suggested the number would go even higher. “I think we can do substantially better”.

The new details include caps on the total amount of federal tax deductions that Americans may claim on their individual income taxes, a move targeted at limiting tax breaks for the highest income earners.

Trump’s original tax plan, released previous year, had individual tax rates of 10 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent.

Alan Cole, a Tax Foundation economist, confirmed that the nonprofit group had analyzed what he called potential, unpublished tweaks to Trump’s plan and concluded that its cost was around $3 trillion over a decade.

“Everything that is broken today can be fixed, and every failure can be turned into a great success”, said Trump, who will face Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November 8 election. Repeating lines that draw big applause at rallies, Trump again pledged to build an anti-migration wall along the U.S. -Mexico border, and again said that Mexico would pay for it.

The economy is now expected to grow by roughly 2 percent a year. Though Clinton’s tax hikes could slow the nation’s growth, he said, they’d pay for far more of her spending proposals and lead to a deficit a tenth the size of Trump’s. As CNN Money reported earlier that day, Trump’s economic, immigration and tax plans could cost the country $1 trillion over the first five years as well as 4 million jobs, according to British forecasting firm Oxford Economics. With the facts and calculations at hand, that math still does not generate 25 million new jobs. “You can discount; you can do things”, he said, but added: “The debt of this country is absolutely sacred”.

Democrats should pounce because Trump just tossed them a softball that they will hit out of the ballpark.

The new proposal scales back from Trump’s original plan, which had nearly quadrupled the standard deduction’s value.

“Just look at the way I just melded into the teleprompter”, Trump said to laughter from the crowd. Trump has already set his sights on the Environmental Protection Agency, saying he will eliminate the Clean Power Plan and retool its ground-level ozone standards.

The latest version of Trump’s plan retains his plan to tax carried interest – that is, the portion of investment profits paid to investment managers – as ordinary income instead of at the 23.8 percent rate that applies to capital gains. Greater business investment and higher wages will help lift both measures, but many other economists believe Trump’s tough trade promises – to renegotiate the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, and threats to impose big tariffs on China and other trading partners – will hurt global trade and end up subtracting from US economic output growth.