Trump’s economic ‘boom’ may depend on Congress

President Donald Trump has promised an economic boom that will last for years to come, but he’s unlikely to get one without the help of Congress to pass major new legislation, according to estimates by Trump’s own economic team.

To achieve about 3 percent growth for the next decade, Trump would need a big infrastructure bill, more tax cuts, additional deregulation and policies that transition more people off government aid and into full-time jobs, according to the 2019 Economic Report of the President, released Tuesday by Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers.

There’s skepticism that Trump will be able to get all of these policies through Congress, especially with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-calif., leading the House.

“Washington is a really hard place to get things done,” said Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, but he stressed that his biggest concern for growth is Trump’s policies getting rolled back or “Medicare for all” becoming reality.

The report shows for the first time that the White House is predicting a lot weaker growth if all of those new policies do not come through. Growth would be about 2.5 percent in 2022 if no additional policies are implemented, according to White House calculations. By 2026, growth could fall to about 2 percent, the model suggests.

A lot is riding on whether Trump can achieve his promised 3 percent growth. Without it, his tax cuts would add substantially more to the debt than they already have and Democrats would have an easier time hammering his economic track record.

To achieve the higher growth rate, the White House assumes that the individual tax cuts will be made permanent (they’re currently slated to expire after 2025) and that Congress will pass an infrastructure bill “commencing in 2019 with observable effects beginning in 2020,” the report says.

The 3 percent White House growth prediction, which has been criticized by outside experts as a “gimmick,” also assumes more deregulation, especially in the finance industry, and a push for “improving self-sufficiency” by placing more work requirements on recipients of government aid.