The 2024 national election is over. In seven weeks, a new Congress will convene with a GOP majority in the Senate and perhaps the House. Seventeen days later, Donald Trump is again president.

So one’s best strategy now is to follow lyricist Harold Arlen’s admonition to “ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive.” This is more for Kamala Harris voters and “never-Trumpers”. But if history is our guide, we can all be sure that the next four years will be eventful.

Also remember that American institutions are strong, although not to the degree many of us once thought. So continue in hope.

Still, almost everyone is wondering what, exactly, the second Trump administration will try to do. What will it accomplish? What effects will these actions have on our society? What will happen to our economy – as much for the world as for us?

The US is the world’s largest economy. Financial markets based here play proportionally larger roles in the global economy. Consider how worldwide financial dominoes toppled in 1930 after the New York stock market crash – even though we were much less powerful then than now. Consider what happened globally after the US real estate crash of the late 2000s.

Trump has proposed many economic things, including eliminating or lowering a wide range of taxes, deporting millions of workers who are not in our country legally, imposing heavy tariffs on all imports, reducing federal spending — including by eliminating entire Cabinet departments — and more. He has called for changes in foreign and defense relations with the rest of the world that could have profound effects, not just on our economy, but globally.

Start by looking at promised actions and ask at least the following questions:

• Is congressional action required? Is it likely?

• Can it be done by executive order? Who has legal standing to question it?

• How will the measure affect key donors to his campaign?

• How will the measure affect key groups that voted for him?

For example, let’s start with the oft-touted promise to eliminate the Department of Education. This would require detailed legislation from Congress. It could not be done by executive order. Congress could, in theory, end every one of the department’s functions as it now exists. Or it could eliminate some programs and close the department, but allow other programs to operate in other cabinet departments or independent agencies, as was the case before education became a cabinet-level agency in 1980. A filibuster-free Senate could approve this, as could a GOP-majority House.

The issues involved are not key in either direction for multi-billionaire Trump donors like Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, John Paulson or Miriam Adelson. No broad economic sector like agriculture or manufacturing or energy would have crucial concerns.

However, when it comes to groups of Trump voters, the effects can be large.

The Department of Education’s total spending is approximately $650 billion. Of that, $125 billion, nearly a fifth, goes to local school districts. On average, federal money makes up 14% of all local school budgets. But it varies greatly from country to country. Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware and New York are at about 8%, Illinois at 11%, Minnesota at 12% and Iowa at 13%. But “Red States” Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina all cluster in the 19% to 23% range. (For very useful information on education funding, see “Revenues and Expenditures for Public K-12 Education: 2021–22 School Year” from the National Center for Education Statistics).

These aren’t just GOP voting states. Those are where Trump’s MAGA movement most dominates that party. Eliminating federal money would drain the budgets of their local schools.

This ironic paradox applies to other federal expenditures that are channeled through states. From Medicaid funds for home care to SNAP and WIC nutrition benefits or to subsidies for local water and sewer systems, federal funds are far more important, in Mitt Romney’s parlance, to “recipient” states that vote red than to “makers” that says to vote blue. So when it comes to passing bills that eliminate education or health and human services, and the funding they provide, votes for complete repeal, even from a GOP congressional majority, are about as likely as Mexico building a border wall for us.

How about Trump’s much-touted proposal to eliminate taxation of tip income, overtime, Social Security, or special treatment of capital gains or hedge fund manager income? Congressional measures are also needed here. And almost every GOP member in both chambers would support these. Democrats, previously fired for favoring high taxes, may not object. So expecting approval is realistic.

Setting aside effects on the general economy, a large majority of households would benefit to one degree or another. Many billionaire donors would not be harmed and many were greatly helped. Nor would specific sectors such as transport, manufacturing, agriculture or IT be directly affected.

But with almost immediate effect, these tax cuts would blow an even bigger hole in the federal budget. Millions of taxpayers would adjust their withholding taxes or quarterly contributions. Economic distortions would quickly result from jury-rigging job conditions to convert regular compensation into “tips” or “overtime.”

If approved by large majorities in the GOP, this outcome could be a useful step toward meaningful reform. For 40 years, the GOP has campaigned for lower taxes and imposed further cuts whenever a balanced budget seems likely, making the old “supply side” argument that lower taxes spur private investment in the economy. But we’re also already hearing GOP deficit hawks in Congress scream.

Federal revenue as a fraction of GDP is two percentage points lower than during the Clinton administration’s four balanced budget years. There will be no solution to increasing deficits and debt that does not include restoring taxes to historic levels and considering changes in the age structure of the population—all unpopular policy options for either party.

Now what about Trump’s headline promise to deport workers here illegally?

First, realize that this would require a massive and expensive federal effort. It would take a long time. The economics of this is a topic in itself.

Would congressional action be needed? Maybe not to take action, but would be to allocate large budget amounts needed.

What about opposition from major donors? Probably not to any great extent.

In contrast, businesses in sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, meatpacking and construction would all be hit if large numbers of their workers were rounded up and transported. Food prices and the costs of new homes and to rebuild would rise sharply. The Federal Reserve would be forced to cut back sharply on the money supply and send interest rates skyrocketing.

Specifically, for the milk-producing upper Midwest and for dairy consumers everywhere, large-scale sweeps of illegal dairy farm workers would wreak havoc. Modern cows are milked every eight hours. A cow that is not being milked is one that is in pain and is on the verge of permanently impairing her ability to lactate. Not only would the financial blow to dairy farm owners be devastating, consumers could face an immediate supply problem on top of the long-term price issue of hiring higher-wage replacement workers. Similar problems would face broiler and turkey producers if poultry processing plants suddenly saw their workers forced into buses or army trucks.

It would also be a blow to local economies. Many small Minnesota school districts struggling to survive would lose 30% or more of their students if unauthorized parents were rounded up. The same goes for small-town main street grocers struggling to survive as customers increasingly make monthly or bi-monthly forays into Aldis or Sam’s Clubs in regional centers like Worthington, Marshall or Wilmar. Lose a third of local customers buying bread, milk and produce and you might as well lock your doors.

Much more could be said. Tariff effects deserve a column of their own. Potentially rewarding Russia’s aggression in Ukraine could encourage China to seize Taiwan. And North Korea’s troop deployment in Ukraine predates a third world war that Trump has vowed to prevent. The economies of both Europe and East Asia would change fundamentally, as would our trade and financial relations with both regions.

So while a Broadway lyricist advised us to “accentuate the positive,” our mothers begged us at least 10 times more to “hope for the best and expect the worst.” The good news for economists is that we have four years to solve these problems, with many more unseen.