I'm sorry, but that is sheer insanity.
Trump's plan cuts revenues by about $440 billion per year. $33 billion is a drop in the bucket.
The DoE is less than 1% of the federal budget. Guess where half that money is spent?
Oversight, maintenance and security of nuclear materials. So if you don't mind terrorists walking off with a bunch of fissile materials, go ahead and eliminate the DoE. :roll:
"Block grants" are not free. It means giving money to the states without stipulations. So unless you're also going to slash federal spending on education by a huge amount, switching to block grants saves nothing.
That's 2% of the gap.
You've proposed $108 billion in cuts -- most of which we can't actually cut -- which leaves a $332 billion deficit.
And of course, slashing that spending will in fact cause a contraction in GDP, and job losses, which means even less tax revenues.
I hate to break this to you, but nearly 80% of federal spending is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, Veterans, and interest. Those programs are either untouchable, or Trump has put them off the table (notably defense). That's AFTER years of spending cuts. Unless we severely cut entitlements to seniors and defense spending, we cannot make this tax cut revenue-neutral via spending cuts.
Next time, check your math.
IRS budget is $11 billion. Yet again, that is chump change as far as the federal budget and Trump deficit are concerned.
If Trump was proposing a tax cut that was genuinely revenue-neutral, and did not wind up taxing the bottom 99% to make tax cuts for the top 1%, that would not be a big issue. Heck, if it was reasonably fair and still progressive enough, I'd be fine with that.
If you expect that to happen, then you are morally obligated to tell us all what you're smoking, and pass it around. :mrgreen:
The last tax plan he released during the campaign offered nothing of the sort. It's a huge tax cut for the wealthy; the top 1% will see their taxes drop by 6%, while the bottom 80% would see 1.7% cuts. It would also eliminate estate taxes, which currently only kick in for estates of $5.4 million and higher (less than 1% of the US population).
Unsurprisingly, Trump's tax plan would heavily benefit... Trump and his family. It would reduce the pass-through rate on his business from 35% to 15%; it would lower his personal taxes by around 8-10%; it would completely eliminate any estate taxes he might have paid. Surprise!
Actually, it's not quite the same. For example, pretty much all of Social Security goes into the hands of elderly Americans, who are taxed on it. They also spend it, which generates economic activity, and thus taxable activity. So if we cut Social Security by 10%, tax receipts are likely to drop slightly.
The same if it's a program that employs people, like education. If we have to fire 500,000 teachers because we cut education spending by $70 billion (and yes, that could definitely happen) then that is 500,000 less people who we can tax, or might only tax at a lower rate if they can't find a comparable job, and again that's a big reduction in economic activity.
Last but not least:
The US has slashed taxes repeatedly since the 1980s. We've almost never raised taxes since the Reagan years. We keep cutting and cutting, and the debt keeps going up, and the cuts are never enough to satisfies Republicans or conservatives, for whom tax cuts are the solution to every problem -- even when they are destroying a state like Kansas.
So go ahead, explain to us how we can slash $440 billion from federal spending, without spending the US economy into a tailspin. Then watch as Trump borrows trillions to pay for his tax cuts for the rich.