OpinionHow serious are Trump’s and Harris’s campaign promises? Take our quiz.
Both camps are making promises left and right. But which ones are plausible?
In the home stretch of this presidential campaign, former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are making promises left and right. But which ones are plausible — and which fail to reflect reality? Taking this quiz might help you evaluate the candidates’ plans.
Immigration is the hottest topic this election season. Mr. Trump is promising mass deportations in a potential second term. He deported many immigrants during his first term in office. But he was not the the only president to do so.
✓ Check Yourself
The Post partnered with Gapminder, a Swedish nonprofit, to survey 600 people ages 18 to 65. The sample was balanced to reflect U.S. demography.
1 of 6
Which president was responsible for most immigrant deportations per year?
So, even with Mr. Trump in the driver’s seat, he did not manage deportations on a scale that outstripped his immediate predecessor.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are about 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. Deporting them all would be a daunting task. But mass deportations have happened before. Mr. Trump likens his plans to so-called Operation Wetback launched during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, which expelled an estimated 1 million immigrants in a single year.
2 of 6
How many immigrants have been expelled from inside the United States over the past 120 years?
Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump have been competing fiercely on tax policy — promising to lower them, or at least not to raise them, on a variety of constituencies — which is a complicated task given the nation’s dire need for money to close a gaping fiscal deficit. Ms. Harris is signaling she will protect the bottom end of the income distribution from higher taxes. But she is also promising to exempt from any new taxes a bunch of people that are, in fact, rather rich: anybody making up to $400,000.
3 of 6
The IRS gets about 160 million individual U.S. tax returns each year. How many people would be exempt from any tax increase under Ms. Harris’s new plans?
Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris seem keenly interested in wooing restaurant workers, likely because Nevada’s six electoral college votes remain up for grabs. Both are offering to exempt tips from taxes.
4 of 6
If tips were to be exempted from taxes, how many of the United States’ 160 million workers would benefit?
These kinds of promises are unfair: Why help a small number of serving staff but not cashiers, who are also on the bottom end of the income scale? They also are likely to mess with the labor market, encouraging tips across a whole new range of businesses.
Beyond the taxing-tips pander, Mr. Trump has made the most extreme tax proposals. The most unusual of them mixes tax policy with one of his most passionately held goals: stopping imports. He has promised to abolish income taxes altogether and, instead, raise money by imposing tariffs on all imports from everywhere: 60 percent on those coming from China and 10 percent on those coming from anywhere else.
5 of 6
If there was a 60% tariff on Chinese imports to the United States and 10% on all other imports to the United States, how much of a typical year’s income tax revenue would they cover?
This tax switcheroo would relieve average Americans from paying income taxes, but they would suffer higher prices.
6 of 6
Mr. Trump has proposed tariffs of 60% on Chinese imports and 10% on all other imports to the United States. How would that affect the average American’s pocketbook?
Neither candidate is facing reality straight-on: The long-term health of the American economy requires economic growth, more immigrants and more tax revenue. But if Ms. Harris is promising the moon, the intemperate Mr. Trump is promising the moon, the rest of the solar system and a host of celestial objects that do not exist.