President-elect Donald Trump will inherit what I consider the strongest domestic economy in 50 years. Job growth, wage growth and GDP growth are all powerful, and expense boost has returned to its normal plodding path. We could be in the midst of a long expansion.

It is not challenging to gauge the policy choices Trump will prefer. assignment 2025, of which I’ve written, will inform us what we require to recognize about economic and financial policy. It is a detailed road chart and will animate much of what happens in the executive branch over the coming years. Much, but not all, of assignment 2025 will require lawful operation in the House and Senate. That seems unlikely, at least until the next election.

assignment 2025 tells us to expect a large expansion in political appointees to civil service, from 4,000 to 20,000, which appears to be feasible without the back of Congress. With that, we’ll view efforts to pressure states to expand universal school vouchers, reduce environmental regulation and expand vigor production on federal lands.

Much of this won’t arrive to pass, because it falls to the purview of state governments or will be tied up in courts for years. Like these changes or not, don’t expect them all in four years.

This, of course, depends upon the next administration’s lawful operation with the Constitution, a dubious proposition to be sure.

Trump can’t carry out assignment 2025 alone

assignment 2025 also contains varied proposals that would reverse benefits to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, restrict access to abortion-related medications, abolish the Department of Education and link federal classroom capital to schools that pursue approved curriculum.

Almost all of assignment 2025 builds a bigger, more expansive and intrusive federal government. Most of it comes from legislation to expand socially conservative ideas, using the powerful arm of government. We should expect much more of that from this administration.

The U.S. economy won’t be much affected by the leisurely changes to these sorts of policies and the tough political fights they entail. Nothing in assignment 2025 wrestles with the real financial challenges – obligation, taxes and entitlement spending. Nor does Trump have a schedule to deal with community obligation. As with his first term, we should expect community obligation to develop substantially in his second.

view:Harris is incorrect about assignment 2025. Our schedule is excellent for America.

There’s also been a flurry of statements on the campaign trail that propose more immediate hazard to the economy. Trump has spoken disapprovingly of an independent Federal savings. That would receive a compliant Congress, which he won’t have, but the appointment of a different Board of Governors and chairman could vastly reduce its independence.

Trump’s plans for deportation, the economy will expense Americans

Trump has promised the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration in the United States is down from its 2007 high of 12.2 million persons to about 11 million today. Absent misleading claims, the test of illegal immigration is lessening over period.

The costs of deportation are huge. Bus and rail costs for voluntary deportation would run well over $50 billion and receive well over a year. We simply don’t have the buses in the United States to shift 11 million people to, declare, Mexico in a year. Moreover, the expense of mobilizing tens of thousands of National Guard troops to aid in deportation would be well over a half-trillion dollars.

Deportation and mobilization would also remove millions of workers from an economy already starved for workers. This would spike the deficit, because undocumented immigrants pay much more in taxes than they receive in services. It would also leisurely financial expansion.

On this issue, expect much of what Trump has shown a propensity for – bold claims and little action.

view:Trump’s triumph terrifies my Latino students. I’m struggling to reassure them.

Trump has also claimed he would expand tariffs, perhaps dramatically. Here, Congress has given the president enormous latitude in setting tariffs for national safety claims. Presidents from both parties have abused this power, so Trump will be able to levy virtually whatever tariff he wishes, on whomever he wishes.

The tariffs are purportedly designed to boost U.S. manufacturing employment. One key issue with that claim is that there’s overwhelming evidence that tariffs reduce domestic factory employment. Indeed, Trump’s 2018 tariffs pushed the Midwest – whose factories were especially susceptible to tariffs – into the brink of decline in 2019.

Today, factory employment in the Midwest is below the January 2017 levels when Trump first took office.

A 10-20% tariff on all imported goods, as Trump proposes, could push the United States into decline. Prices on all manufactured goods would rise, and we would expect retaliatory tariffs to likewise reduce demand for U.S. goods and services abroad. This is a challenging lesson to relearn, but we appear a hardheaded people.

America’s economy stands on our reputation

It must be said that many of Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic proposals were also unhelpful to long-term financial expansion. Her tariffs were more modest, but still shortsighted and counterproductive.

The Democrats also lacked an effective schedule for obligation reduction and hold ridiculously optimistic views of their place-based economic advancement programs.

But there was one large difference between the 2024 presidential nominees.

The U.S. economy has dominated the globe for most of the history century and continues to do so today. Over that period, we’ve endured a lot of very impoverished economic policies, but continued to thrive.

Our twin pillars of strength lie in our national reputation in two areas: First, we are a magnet for attracting and creating human pool – educated people with skills, drive and entrepreneurial talent. Second, we abide by the rule of law in the conduct of our elected officials, commerce and international affairs.

Trump’s policies deeply hazard the first of these, in making the United States an unwelcoming and risky place for foreign nationals. Trump’s conduct while in and outside of office makes mockery of the rule of law. If his lawlessness continues, as we must expect, a weakened and poorly performing economy will be among the least of our concerns.

Michael J. Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research, is the George and Frances Ball distinguished professor of economics in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University. This column first appeared in the Indianapolis Star.