Patti and guest co-host Terry Cosgrove are joined by Daniel Hornung, former deputy director of the National Economic Council. He discussed the economic impact of Trump tariffs, which he expects to incur annual price increases of $2,000 to $3,000 per family and potentially cause a recession. Hornung also criticized the Trump administration's government cost-cutting efforts being led by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  

"Unfortunately, I think the approach that they are taking is actually making government less efficient," he told WCPT. "And I think there's no better example than the fact that first they say they're going to cut, I think it was ($)2 trillion, and now we're down to ($)150 billion. That's probably not true, but just for the sake of argument, let's say they cut something like that. The personnel cuts they are making at the Internal Revenue Service are enough to basically entirely offset all of those cuts. And what I mean by that is they are slashing staffing at the IRS so substantially that economists who have looked at this say that enough wealthy people are going to feel that they don't need to pay their taxes that the government's actually going to be losing money because of DOGE."

Hornung also spoke about the "substantial" long-term harm of government cuts to a program like Head Start, "because those kids [will] grow up with less economic opportunity, less education, and really are put in a position where they have less opportunity for the rest of their lives," he said. 

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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