“A set of new tariffs proposed by former President Donald Trump would cost the average American family an estimated $1,700 annually—and lower-income households would be hit relatively harder, a new analysis warns.
Trump has called for a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on all imports combined with higher tariffs (potentially as high as 60 percent, he’s claimed) aimed specifically at imports from China. Together, those two policies would cost Americans about $500 billion per year, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), a trade-focused think tank.”
“”If reelected, Donald Trump has said he’s willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military to deport the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country,” Kristen Welker asked of Sen. Marco Rubio (R–Fla.) on NBC News’s Meet the Press. “It would be the largest deportation operation in American history. Do you support that plan?”
“Yes, we are going to have to do something,” responded Rubio after arguing that the number of undocumented migrants is much higher. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have to do something dramatic to remove people from this country that are here illegally, especially people we know nothing about.”
A son of Cuban immigrants and, at one time, strongly critical of Trump’s proposal to end birthright citizenship and otherwise restrict immigration, Rubio’s turnaround matches the direction of his party, which takes a hard line on the issue. But if Trump plans “the largest deportation operation in American history”—his own words, adopted by Welker—we can assume that such a big-government scheme will come with matching costs. That’s exactly what number crunchers predict.”
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“”The costs of the former president’s plan to deport the more than 14 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. today could easily reach more than $1 trillion over 10 years, before taking into account the labor costs necessary for such a project or the unforeseen consequences of reducing the labor supply by such drastic amounts over a short period of time,” MarketWatch’s Chris Matthews reported this week of the results of a Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) analysis.
Trump’s plan is still taking shape, though the former and perhaps future president has proposed using both the military and local law enforcement to eject migrants in this country illegally. If that policy was put into effect, “the removal of one million immigrants would cost the federal government between $40 billion and $50 billion over 10 years, and up to $100 billion if those immigrants were higher-paid workers,” Matthews wrote of PWBM’s finding.
Matthews notes that immigration hawks like Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), predict as many as one million deportations per year under tough enforcement. That’s quite a reach, considering that deportations peaked at an average of 383,307 per year under former President Barack Obama. A dramatically higher target means rapidly accumulating costs, with the trillion-dollar price potentially reached after a decade.”
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“”Under current law, unauthorized workers…generally do not qualify for federal benefits,” PWBM economists point in a separate analysis. They add that “more deportations, though, leads to less economic growth.” As a result, according to PWBM, with the implementation of restrictive policies, “GDP in 2050 will be four percent lower relative to no additional deportations.”
AAF predicted that with deportations, “the labor force would shrink by 6.4 percent and, as a result, in 20 years the U.S. GDP would be almost 6 percent lower than it would be without fully enforcing current law.”
In 2017, the Center for Migrant Studies cautioned that with a mass deportation program, “gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years.”
Obviously, there’s a range of costs projected for a policy shift to mass deportations of undocumented migrants. That’s because it has never been tried on the scale envisioned by Trump and his supporters. In fact, if Rubio is correct that the real number of people in the country in defiance of the law is “upwards of 20, 25, maybe 30 million,” deportations will have to be that much more aggressive, with an even higher price tag to match.”
“As American warships rack up kills against Houthi drones and missiles in the Red Sea, Pentagon officials are increasingly alarmed not just at the threat to U.S. naval forces and international shipping — but at the growing cost of keeping them safe.
U.S. Navy destroyers have shot down 38 drones and multiple missiles in the Red Sea over the past two months, according to a Defense Department official, as the Iran-backed militants have stepped up attacks on commercial vessels moving energy and oil through the world’s most vital shipping lanes. On Saturday alone, the destroyer USS Carney intercepted 14 one-way attack drones.
Houthi leaders have said the attacks are a show of support for the Palestinians, and that they won’t stop until Israel halts its operations in Gaza. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday announced a new international maritime coalition to safeguard shipping and counter the attacks.
The cost of using expensive naval missiles — which can run up to $2.1 million a shot — to destroy unsophisticated Houthi drones — estimated at a few thousand dollars each — is a growing concern”
“Ray shared data showing that workers would need to make almost $30 an hour in order to rent a standard two-bedroom apartment in the Miami area without experiencing cost burdens. As of 2021, Miami’s median hourly wage was $18.59, creating a situation where many residents are forced to spend upward of 50 percent of their incomes on housing alone. The conventional financial wisdom is that households should spend no more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent.
Already in 2019, some were sounding the alarm about Miami’s rising housing prices. One study commissioned by the housing group Miami Houses for All in collaboration with city and county officials found that Miami was the third-most expensive metropolitan area in the entire country for housing costs. The same study found that over 50 percent of households in Miami were spending more than they could afford on rents and mortgage payments.”
“The GAO notes that it would be more cost-efficient to hold off on buying F-35s until they are operationally tested than it would be to pay for the aircraft now and upgrade them later.
But, of course, when did cost efficiency and the military go hand-in-hand? There’s a reason Lockheed Martin brags about building parts of the F-35 in 48 different states, and that’s not because it saves money. The F-35 has been as much an expensive make-work program for military contractors as it has been a vital part of America’s national defense—and in that regard the cost overruns and eventual upgrades might be seen as a feature rather than a bug.
Production of the F-35 fighter was originally supposed to cost about $200 billion, but the price tag has already ballooned to about twice as much. Recently, Lockheed Martin warned that supply chain issues and inflation could cause further delays and cost overruns. Monday’s GAO report confirmed that construction is running behind schedule, with about 28 percent of the 553 completed jets having been delivered late.”