Trump 'scavaging for ideas' at a critical time for the US affordability crisis: WSJ

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board reviewed President Donald Trump's new package of ideas for reducing cost of living as voters call for blood over the issue in the midterms — and found serious problems with some of them.

Ultimately, the board concluded, some of the ideas have merit, like pausing tariffs on beef. But one other particular idea would be a massive dud.

"Mr. Trump is scavenging for ideas to reduce gasoline prices, which have climbed to a national average of $4.52 a gallon," wrote the board. "On Monday he resurrected the hoary idea of suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal excise tax on gas. 'We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in,' he told CBS News."

The problem, wrote the board, is that aside from the fact that "Mr. Trump doesn’t have the legal authority to pause the tax on his own, so he would need Congress to pass legislation," the issue is that "a temporary pause on the federal gas tax won’t appreciably reduce how much Americans pay at the pump. After the tax holiday ends, prices will increase. A suspension would cost the highway trust fund about $2.1 billion a month in revenue, which would have to be made up with general fund revenue."

The WSJ argued that if Trump is serious about reforming federal gas taxes, a better idea is to encourage states to bear more of the responsibility.

Ultimately, the board concluded, "the best and most immediate way Mr. Trump could reduce costs for Americans would be to drop his tariffs en toto. We know that won’t happen, but it would be a big political and economic winner."