Comment by senderista
7 days ago
Dems just need to spin these tariffs as the largest tax increase in US history (which is basically correct).
7 days ago
Dems just need to spin these tariffs as the largest tax increase in US history (which is basically correct).
I’m curious to see how they are going to fumble this.
I wanted to argue...
then I couldn't
It's also a tax on everyone, to the benefit of large corporations which can now increase prices / decrease value), due to less competition.
Which is one of the reasons the countries with high tariffs have had worse economy overall and specifically much worse than the US economy. The higher your tariffs the worse the protected industry and the whole economy.
Yes - with free trade, the US is the wealthiest economy in the history of the world. Economic research says it works. What is the reasoning for throwing it away?
I hear the nonsense reasoning from the Trump crowd, but many know it's nonsense even as they say it. What is their real goal here?
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How would they get the message out even if they had one? Republicans own the media.
Which media? Most "traditional" media is quite left leaning.
If you mean they're not yet state controlled mouthpieces of a conservative dictator, sure, I guess that counts as left leaning?
I see a lot of shock and gossip.
And a LOT of reporting about how the dictator is pissing off his rich enablers.
I guess if you consider the left and the right to both be bootlickers of the oligarchs we're both right.
I don't see a lot of content that supports your thesis I guess.
First of all you might want to update that assumption, but traditional media aside Zuckerberg is all in on the clown show and he owns the major social media platforms.
Even Mike Pence came out and said that.
Is this a sign republicans in congress may do something?
Only a carefully selected subset. Just enough of the most vulnerable of them so they can be on record as being against this, but not enough of them to change any outcomes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we get enough Republicans in congress to pass a law taking the tariff power away from Trump, but Trump will veto that law.
I would be quite surprised if we can get enough Republicans to override that veto
No, Mike Pence is a villain to Trumpist republicans. He speaks for the old guard republicans who still think this is all just a temporary blip and populism will be forgotten in 4-8 years.
They won’t even need to spin it. People are going to feel it very quickly.
Coming right on the heels of the largest layoff in US history (which is still ongoing, depending on your definition).
and done purely on Presidential authority without Congress.
Matt Levine on his column today went over this.
No taxation without representation!
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This is assuming America is even capable of producing what it needs to generate jobs or investment. There’s no point in taxing coffee from Africa; America doesn’t produce competing coffee! There’s no point in tariffing specialized electronics from China that Apple needs; US literally doesn’t have the capacity to produce these and the investment to do so will be inefficient as American labor is better put to service and knowledge sector work to produce more Apple product designs (just one example).
This is just going to make the American economy more inefficient, less able to compete internationally, and devalue American interests globally, which means America will have less clout to privilege their citizens with.
There's no point in Africa taxing imports from us under that logic?
They lower it, we lower it.
2 replies →
> There will be more of a hit as we transition to domestic manufacturing, but it will generate jobs, investment, and keep money in our economy.
That's not how it works. It protects inefficient companies, reduces competition, and lets them pocket more of consumers money. I'm sure they will 'share' it with their labor force.
The US is and has been fully employed without it, so it can't really add jobs. The US has plenty of investment, and it will cut foreign investment - many of those factories are owned by foreign companies. It shifts the workforce to less productive work which will hurt the economy as well.
It will keep money out of our economy too. Economics doesn't work by keeping money in your pocket.
> There will be more of a hit ... but it will generate jobs, investment, and keep money in our economy.
Have you heard of 'trickle-down economics'? That was the theory that if we cut taxes on the wealthy, they will spend/invest more and it will 'trickle down' to everyone else. Guess what happened? Only the first step - the certain one - ever happened. The magical future never did.
It's the same here. It's just a hit for the benefit of a few; that's it. No economist thinks protectionism boosts the economy.
> In addition, other countries could simply loosen their restrictions and tariffs.
The DARVO idea that others are somehow blocking US investment - which dominates the world - has no foundation. Poor countries, of course, don't want their entire economy controlled by some trader on Wall Street.
> There will be more of a hit as we transition to domestic manufacturing, but it will generate jobs, investment, and keep money in our economy.
I would be very surprised if this is the result, but I'm willing to be very surprised.
For now, though, the manufacturing company that I work for, as well as a couple of others I know about, are likely going to close their facilities in the US because of these tariffs. It's simply not economically feasible to pay a tax every time we ship materials from one plant to another in a different country.
If they can't operate efficiently in the US, then they're looking at just ignoring the US market entirely. The rest of the world is a plenty large enough market to address.
Which restrictions and tariffs are these?
You want me to detail all countries' tariff policies?
Are you insinuating that these countries have no tariffs in place, or...?
I believe it's quite clear the imbalance of many markets. Automobiles being the most distinct, but every product tariffed varies by country.
edit: rate-limited, I'm not allowed to talk anymore I guess...
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>> In addition, other countries could simply loosen their restrictions and tariffs.
You can keep your chlorine washed chicken. I’m sure most of the UK will be happy to pay 10% tariffs if it keeps those out.
Sounds good to me :)
You're missing out, our chicken is amazing.
But 10% on your imports is a good trade, I agree.
>you choose to purchase foreign over domestic, but you have that option.
where can i buy a domestic made iPhone?
>as we transition to domestic manufacturing
manufacturing is capital intensive and has low margins and thus is adversely affected by 2 things the most - unstable environment and high volume based taxes, which both has just significantly increased.
And thus you have the $500 billion investment from Apple to build here.
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Taking it in the can? The US is the richest nation in the world! If you're #1 it's really hard to say other nations are taking advantage of you.
Americans have been taken advantage of, but it's not been other countries taking advantage of Americans, it's rich Americans taking advantage of poor Americans.
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> Decades of USA taking it in the can trade wise appears to be over, for now.
Except that the US hasn't been. Global trade has made the nation wealthier than ever. People who aren't wealthy have been taking it in the can, of course, but that's not because of global trade and these changes aren't going to fix that.
All that's going to happen is that if you aren't already very wealthy, you're going to get poorer.
Convincing the entire world to use its currency and sell it things cheaply is apparently somehow bad for America? I think you're about to get a very expensive lesson in economics.
>> Dems just need to spin these tariffs as the largest tax increase in US history
And then what? From a quick look at the 2024 Democratic Party Platform:
"Democrats will make billionaires pay a minimum income tax rate of 25 percent, raising $500 billion in 10 years. We’ll end the preferential treatment for capital gains for millionaires, so they pay the same rate on investment income as on wages"
Tax increase.
"We’ll put an end to abusive life insurance tax shelters, and stop billionaires from exploiting retirement tax incentives that are supposed to help middle-class families save"
Tax increase.
"We’ll eliminate the 'stepped-up basis' loophole for the wealthiest Americans"
Tax increase.
"Democrats will close the 'carried interest' loophole"
Tax increase.
"we’ll increase our new stock buyback tax to 4 percent"
Tax increase.
"Trump doesn’t care: he slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, down from 35 percent. President Biden will raise that rate back to 28 percent"
Tax increase.
"And for those billion-dollar tax dodgers, the President signed a historic 15 percent corporate minimum tax into law"
Tax increase.
"He also reached a global minimum tax agreement with 140 countries"
Tax increase.
"Biden will double the tax rate that American multinationals pay on foreign earnings to 21 percent"
Tax increase.
"It means ending special tax breaks for corporate jets, and boosting fuel taxes on corporate and private jet travel"
Tax increase.
"We’ll also eliminate the so-called 'like-kind exchange' loophole that allows wealthy real estate investors to avoid paying taxes on real estate profits, as long as they keep investing in real estate"
Tax increase.
"It offers corporate landlords a basic choice for the next two years: either cap rent increases at 5 percent, or lose a valuable federal tax break"
Tax increase.
"We oppose the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education"
Tax increase.
"Democrats will make Medicare permanently solvent, by making the wealthy pay their fair share in Medicare taxes"
Tax increase.
"To cover those costs, the law finally restored a vital 'polluter pays' tax that had lapsed 26 years before"
Tax increase.
"fight for a global minimum tax that ensures corporations pay their fair share"
Tax increase.
Spinning the tariffs as a tax increase will do what for the Dems, exactly? Democrats love taxes on corporations, do they not think the consumer bears much of the costs of those taxes?
Well, tariffs are about as regressive as you can get, so I fail to see the contradiction with advocating higher taxes on the wealthy.
>> Well, tariffs are about as regressive as you can get
I don't know.
I used to be poor, maybe 60% of my income went to housing.
That wasn't imported.
My food was mostly sugar, wheat, corn, and high fructose corn syrup.
Also not imported.
Maybe the car. I had an older car that I worked on myself, but it was made in Japan.
That would be the main one.
The job I had back then is gone, I was a manual laborer and what I did for work in the early 1990's doesn't exist now, it has been automated away.
I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It was shitty work but I didn't have to talk to anyone. Are tariffs going to bring back shitty work for people like I used to be?
Whatever happened to all those losers of the year?
And it's simplistic analysis like this is why people fall for stuff like this.
Equating a tax on Billionaires to a tax on every import! A tax on corporate jets - it's laughable that people can't see the most basic economic differences in these.
I thought Dems loved taxes
Nobody loves taxes, including Democrats.