Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, September 16, 2024

Our presidential candidates are promising to spend money on all kinds of goodies. Former President Donald Trump has floated a baby bonus, historic levels of border security and more tax cuts, including ending taxes on Social Security and tips. Vice President Kamala Harris is promising five-digit housing credits, a ramped-up Child Tax Credit, small business tax credits and more clean energy investments.

Nonpartisan estimates for both candidates’ promises range in the trillions, which is not to say that all of these are bad ideas. Far from it. But I’ve heard much less about how to pay for this new spending or the drops in revenue from tax cuts. And as they say in economics, there’s no free lunch.

Now, to be sure, I’ve heard about some unicorn pay-fors, and by unicorn I mean make-believe. For example, massive income and wealth taxes on the rich will take care of it. Or tariffs will boost domestic production and raise wages and because of baby bonuses people will have more babies and we’ll grow our way out.

My 3-year-old daughter loves unicorns, especially pink sparkly ones. I recently learned on a trip to England that unicorns are a symbol of Scotland, where my ancestors came from, so now I’m on the unicorn bandwagon too. But there are not real unicorn pay-fors in the economy. More spending or less taxes comes with tradeoffs — tradeoffs that for too long our politicians have not been forthright about. . . .