Washington:

Donald Trump has revealed his initial plans, should he be voted to power in the 2024 US presidential election. Mr Trump said he will set up a task force shortly after assuming office, aimed at conducting a thorough financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.

Donald Trump went on to say that once the audit is complete, the new task force will then make recommendations for drastic reforms, which he believes, is the need of the hour.

Elaborating his plan about the committee and who will head it, Donald Trump said that SpaceX, Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk shall head the task force, adding that Mr Musk has already agreed to take up the responsibility. A video of Donald Trump announcing this was shared on social media website X by local media outlet CSpan News Network.

Elon Musk too, welcomed Donald Trump’s decision stating that such a move is “badly needed.”

This is badly needed https://t.co/H9AKYbDssZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2024

Talking more about his plans for the United States, Mr Trump said he aims to “Make America the world’s capital for crypto and bitcoin.” He also said he plans to eliminate at least ten old regulations and will bring in ten new ones to replace them.

Addressing the Economic Club of New York, Donald Trump said on September 5, “To stop this onslaught at lower prices, I’m pledging today that in my second term we will eliminate a minimum of ten old regulations. For every one new regulation, we’ll be able to do that quite easily. Actually, and instead of attacking industries of the future, we will embrace them, including making America the world capital for crypto and bitcoin.”

Donald Trump heaped praise on Elon Musk saying, “At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement, that’s a nice smart guy. He knows what he’s doing. Very much appreciated. I will create a Government Efficiency Commission task with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms we need to do. It can’t go on the way we are now. And Elon, because he’s not very busy, has agreed to head that task force, be interesting if he has the time be good one to do it, but he’s agreed,” Donald Trump said.

“At the suggestion of @elonmusk…I will create a Government Efficiency Commission tasked with conducting a complete financial & performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms. And Elon…has agreed to head that task force.” pic.twitter.com/ep2WU9ySRT

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 5, 2024

Mr Trump spoke about how improper and fraudulent payments cost US taxpayers an estimated “hundreds of billions of dollars” in 2022. He announced that the commission will create an action plan to eliminate payments within months and added that it will “save trillions of dollars”, according to the video posted by CSpan on X.

Donald Trump said, “In 2022, fraud and improper payments alone cost taxpayers an estimated hundreds of billions of dollars. As the first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months. This will save trillions of dollars trillions. It’s massive for the same service that you have right now, trillions of dollars is wasted and gone, and nobody knows where it went further, taming inaction and bringing prices way down.”

He also pledged to make ‘Trump tax cuts’ permanent and announced that there will be no tax on tips. He alleged that US Vice President Kamala Harris copied his plan and announced to impose no tax on tips. He claimed that Kamala Harris will not move ahead with it and will stick to her plan.

Mr Trump said, “The 5th pillar of my plan is to make the Trump tax cuts permanent. They are massive tax cuts, biggest ever permanent and to cut tax even more, and we will have no tax on tips, something which they copied four weeks after I said it. She got upset and said no tax on tips. I said I just said that she is actually copying a lot of my plan. In fact, we’re going to send her a MAGA sometime in the next week….But we also know she doesn’t mean it. She’s going to stick with what has been about and also no tax on Social security benefits.”

Pledging to save social security, Donald Trump said that he will not impose tax on the benefits of people in social security, stressing that they have been wiped out by inflation.

Mr Trump said, “People in social security have been wiped out by inflation and now on top of it, we tax their benefits. We’re not going to tax their benefits. We have so many different ways of making so much money. This country, the potential is so incredible. We don’t have to take it away from people on social security. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to save social security. She’s going to destroy Social Security.”

The former US President said that his administration has proved that targeted tax cuts do not increase the deficit. He said that it reduces the deficit by growing the economy and raising revenue, according to the video posted by CSpan on X.

He said, “After we gave the massive tax cuts, we took in the following year with a much lower rate. Billions and billions of dollars more than we did the previous year with a high rate, think of that. So, with a much lower rate, we took in more money because people were incentivised.”

Speaking about reducing the corporate tax burden, Mr Trump said he plans to reduce the corporate tax rate from 21 per cent to 15 per cent for companies that make their product in the US.

“Corporate tax revenues are 31 per cent higher today than before, my tax law was signed with all of those cuts 31 percent higher. To further support the revival of American manufacturing, my plan calls for expanded R&D tax credits, 100 percent bonus depreciation, expensing for no manufacturing investments, and a reduction in corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 15 per cent solely for companies that make their product in America,” he said.

Responding to the video which shows Donald Trump announcing his plans, Elon Musk took to X to post, “This is badly needed.”
 

The U.S. House approved a 45-day funding bill to keep federal agencies open as Speaker Kevin McCarthy dropped demands for steep spending cuts and relied on Democratic votes for passage to send the package to the Senate.
| Photo Credit: AP

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