You’ve got to give credit to former President Donald Trump for being the first to bring up what has become a politically popular proposal to eliminate the federal income tax on tipped wages. It was a smart political move. Republicans, long maligned as the party of billionaires and multinational corporations, could use more policy proposals aimed at helping lower and middle class workers and small businesses. This proposal would do both, and it also, on the surface at least, aligns with conservative fundamental principles of shrinking taxes and the overall size of government, generally always a good thing.

You’ve also got to laugh at Vice President Kamala Harris for doing a complete copycat of Trump’s idea, and doing it in Nevada no less, the place where Trump himself launched it. Sure, there is an overabundance of tipped service workers in what promises to be a pivotal swing state come November, but proposing the exact same idea as Trump when Democrats otherwise have never seen a tax they don’t like just comes off as shameless pandering and nothing more. Hopefully enough Nevadans will see that.

But let’s go deeper than election promises and take a gander at the proposal itself, especially because of the very real possibility that it could be enacted regardless of the party that wins. Is eliminating the tax on tips even a good idea? What might some of the unintended consequences be?

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