Mike Johnson says Congress needs to figure out the math behind Trump’s tax cuts on tips

President-elect Donald Trump wants to end income tax on tips — but it’s not clear how the math works out.

US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to end income tax on tips. Now, his administration will have to figure out how to make the numbers work.

“We’re going to try to make that happen in the Congress,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

“You have got to do the math. You have got to make sure that these new savings from American people can be paid for and make sure the economy is a pro-growth economy,” Johnson said.

During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged a range of tax cuts. They include an extension of tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 — also known as the “Trump tax cut” — as well as eliminating taxes on overtime pay, Social Security checks, and tips.

During remarks in Arizona in September, Trump said that ditching taxes on overtime would give “people more of an incentive to work.”

The tax cuts are just some of Trump’s economic policies that economists say could significantly ramp up the federal debt balance and widen the deficit, which stood at nearly $36 trillion on Thursday.

Other than tax cuts, Trump has pledged to implement across-the-board 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods and other tariffs on overseas goods.

If Trump makes good on all his economic policy pledges, they could add as much as $10 trillion to the US debt over the next decade, according to an estimate from top economist Nouriel Roubini.

In Trump’s 2016 campaign, he said he would eliminate the national debt. It rose about $7.8 trillion during his first term.