Let's start with how a second Trump term is going to screw your retirement savings. Another Trump Term May Change Tax Treatment of Retirement Plans From ESG investing in 401(k) plans to the solvency of Social Security, industry experts say the outcome of the election may have significant consequences for retirement policy. https://www.plansponsor.com/another-trump-term-may-change-tax-treatment-of-retirement-plans/ With President-elect Donald Trump securing another term as president, retirement industry experts believe there will be various implications on retirement plans and policy in the coming four years, including the risk of changes to the deferred-income-tax treatment of most retirement plan contributions, sources said. How to Pay for Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? While Republicans have secured control of the Senate and may yet retain control of the House of Representatives, Michael Kreps, a principal in Groom Law Group, says leadership will likely prioritize tax legislation. Large portions of 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are set to expire, and Kreps says there are already discussions about how to extend the law’s provisions. He predicts that Congress will want to pay for at least a portion of the cost of those extensions, which means coming up with trillions of dollars of offsets. “There should be no question that the tax incentive for retirement savings is at risk,” Kreps says. “People forget that we narrowly avoided ‘Rothification’—meaning mandatory Roth deferrals—in 2017. Members of Congress will say they support the retirement system, and they do, but when push comes to shove, someone’s ox will have to be gored if they want to pay for extending the tax cuts.” Beyond the tax question, Congress managed to pass major retirement legislation—the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019—during Trump’s first presidency, itself a politically divisive time. However, many leaders in the retirement industry say it remains uncertain what sort of new, significant policy proposals will come out of the second Trump term. Kreps says it is difficult to predict what to expect from a Trump administration, because little is known about the administration’s retirement priorities. “There are plenty of policy proposals out there from Trump-aligned organizations, including Project 2025, and most of those proposals are consistent with longstanding Republican policy positions,” Kreps says. “However, the big takeaway from the first Trump administration was just how unpredictable things [were]. … In my view, the big question for a Trump [Department of Labor] is whether there will be a change in how the agency works with the regulated community.” ‘More Adversarial’ Relationship with DOL Kreps explains that there was a shift in enforcement and regulatory approach at the DOL early in the administration of former President Barack Obama, as it prioritized creating policy through enforcement and “big ticket regulatory initiatives,” such as the fiduciary rule, while avoiding industry engagement on sub-regulatory guidance like advisory and individual prohibited transaction exemptions. Kreps says this approach largely stayed the same through the terms of Trump and President Joe Biden. “I think it’s fair to say that DOL’s relationship with the retirement industry is more adversarial than it was for the first 35 years of [the Employee Retirement Income Security Act],” Kreps says. “We will have to see whether that continues in 2025 or whether new political leadership will try to make some fundamental changes at the agency.” Kreps notes that Representative Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina—the chair of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce—has repeatedly expressed concerns with the DOL’s tactics. Olivia Mitchell, a professor of insurance risk management and the executive director of the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says preserving lower tax rates will decrease the attractiveness for participants to save in tax-qualified retirement accounts. If Social Security benefits and tips are not taxed, as promised by Trump during his campaign, and if Social Security benefits are increased, as promised, Mitchell argues that these will also dampen the demand for retirement saving. “On the other hand, massive tariff increases and mounting federal deficits will boost inflation and depress economic growth, making it far more difficult for workers to save and invest effectively for retirement,” Mitchell notes. Lessons From 1st Trump Era Kevin Crain, executive director of the Institutional Retirement Income Council, argues that the first Trump administration offered indicators as to what a second term may bring regarding retirement savings and retirement income. During the first administration, from 2017 to 2021, there were explicit statements of support for the 401(k) system and the passage of the SECURE Act, which Crain says expanded retirement savings access, promoted in-plan retirement income options and recognized longevity trends. “Executive orders also promoted easier access to retirement plans for small businesses,” Crain says. “I would expect that general support to continue in a second administration.” However, Andrew Oringer, a partner in Wagner Law Group, says it remains to be seen if there will be any significant policy proposals coming out of a second Trump administration, one that will likely have control of both houses of Congress. “Even if there is control, the current need for 60 votes in the Senate [to avoid a filibuster] is a challenge for anything controversial,” Oringer says. “Talk of major revamping of the retirement system had started to come out of the Biden administration, so I’m not sure that’s the road we’re about to go down.” ESG Factors Likely to Take a Back Seat While many thought that Biden’s rule permitting consideration of environmental, social and governance factors when investing in defined contribution plans could survive judicial scrutiny, even after the overturning of the Chevron standard, Oringer says it is unknown whether the Trump administration will seek to go back to the Trump-era rule or will simply “seek to take the Biden rule off the books.” “In any event, the hostility toward ESG that will be coming out of the Trump administration will not be encouraging to those fiduciaries that want to take ESG into account,” Oringer says. Mitchell and Crain also agreed it is likely a Trump administration will extinguish other plans for ESG investing. What of Social Security? Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research, says the election result will have big consequences for retirement plans and retirement security. “Social Security will cut itself—no political action is needed—in eight to nine years when revenue falls short, and benefits across the board will be cut 25%,” she predicts. “At the very least, private savings has to make up for that loss and more.” Ghilarducci emphasizes the importance of legislation like the bipartisan Retirement Savings for Americans Act, introduced by Senator John Hickenlooper, D-Colorado, in 2023, which would require all American workers without a workplace plan to be in a savings plan. “It’s up to the Republican Party to be on the side of workers and prevent Social Security insolvency and to expand retirement security to all American workers,” Ghilarducci says.
That's not much in terms of misbegotten policies, a nebulous prediction that 401(k)s will lose their status and Social Security having a funding shortage two Presidential terms from now. Why don't you enjoy the process of paring DEI back?
With every Presidential administration there are policies I agree and others I disagree with. The question becomes if the failed Presidential administration policies are so numerous that it undermines America and negatively impacts our lives. Do you think large tariffs are a good idea?
So who is going to build, re-hab and repair the houses? Trump says deportations will lower housing costs. The reality is complicated. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trum...sts-the-reality-is-complicated-124024709.html On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump blamed the housing crisis on immigration. As he tells it, millions of immigrants are pouring over the border and taking up scarce housing in a market that is already tight on supply and increasingly unaffordable for the middle class. But housing market experts say the relationship between rising immigration and surging housing costs isn’t so clear. On one hand, immigrants, of course, need their own housing, and higher demand can make rents and home prices more expensive. On the other, immigrants disproportionately help contribute to new home supply because so much of the construction industry runs on their labor. “When I hear about mass deportations or tighter border security, I think it could send a chilling effect through the immigrant population in the construction industry and therefore reduce the labor pool and drive labor costs up,” said Jim Tobin, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), a trade group. Ultimately, those policies can cause construction delays and make home prices higher for consumers, he added. The NAHB estimates that immigrants make up around a third of the labor force in construction trades. In some states like California and Texas, the percentage is closer to 40%. Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the Workers Justice Project, an organization that helps immigrant workers in New York organize and get educational training, said that many recent arrivals end up working in residential construction because it has few barriers to entry and strong labor demand. Many of those workers are living far from their job sites in cheaper parts of the city and may be sharing housing, she added. “Very often where workers build are not places where they can afford to live,” she said. “We’re seeing communities and families coming together to be able to rent one apartment.” Duewight García, 36, arrived in New York in 2019 from Honduras. After learning how to navigate the city’s regulations mandating that construction workers receive 40 hours of safety training before getting jobs, he found work in residential and commercial construction doing drywall installation and framing. He said he wants to continue his education in the US but is concerned what Trump’s policies mean for immigrants. “The policies that he has been talking about and that he’s begun to implement toward immigrants are really worrying,” García said in Spanish. “We really come here to work and contribute to the economy of this country, because we know that if this country is doing well, we’re going to do well.” As for his own housing, García currently lives in a shelter in Elmhurst, Queens, after an electrical fire at his apartment. (More at above url)
Trump tariffs will make video game consoles up to 40% more expensive https://metro.co.uk/2024/11/08/trump-tariffs-will-make-video-game-consoles-40-expensive-21954650/
Let's start the new term by releasing a large number of convicted criminals back on the streets. Trump on Day 1: Begin deportation push, pardon Jan. 6 rioters and make his criminal cases vanish https://apnews.com/article/trump-da...ling-ukraine-6747c6e64b0440978f59450b928f61d1
The deportation plan will cost $88 billion a year, totaling around $968 billion over the next decade while deporting 10 million to 20 million people. Additionally wrecking the U.S. economy. Fox News Host Raises Doubts on Cost, Practicality of Trump Deportation Plan https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-host-questions-cost-practicality-trump-deportation-1983501
Just one of his many proposals that will doom his presidency... Trump's first move could doom his presidency: WaPo analyst https://www.rawstory.com/trump-promises-immigration/ Donald Trump has a new dilemma to face as he prepares to start a second term, former conservative turned anti-Trump columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote for The Washington Post — abandon his promises, or let them destroy his fledgling administration. "He could, for example, enact draconian, across-the-board tariffs; begin massive roundups and deportations of law-abiding 'dreamers;' repeal the Affordable Care Act and major bipartisan legislation passed under President Joe Biden; and enact a new round of massive tax cuts for big corporations and wealthy individuals," wrote Rubin — but in doing so he would "make himself extremely unpopular, induce economic and social chaos and create political problems for his party in the 2026 midterms." He faced similar choices when he was first in power, Rubin noted — his effort to repeal the ACA in 2017 was a disaster that led to voters turning out in droves to give Democrats a wave election. From there, he pivoted and falsely tried to boast that he saved the ACA during the 2024 campaign. "By Trump’s own admission, there is no viable alternative," Rubin wrote. We may be about to see a repeat of this, Rubin argued — but this time with immigration policy. "Nothing was as near and dear to the hearts of legions of white supremacists and aggrieved MAGA supporters looking for a scapegoat for their economic ills," she wrote. "That said, the price tag could be in the hundreds of billions; a dragnet of this size would require a sweeping police state, deprive Americans of millions of workers, upset economic progress and create images as devastating as those we saw during the child separation debacle (which, if you recall, he eventually had to abandon)." Trump may well initially try to do this — but "a false start and failure could well color the remainder of his presidency, leaving him politically weakened, reviled and coping with a self-made economic crisis," and if he doubles down she wrote it could be"devastating." His tariffs, which nearly all credible economists warn would explode consumer prices, would put him in a similar bind, forcing him to either pare down his ambitions or set himself up for ruin. Ultimately, Rubin concluded, "Trump can choose to follow his radical ideological backers or he can choose to be politically and economically successful. He cannot do both."