[dalight]

Ultimately, it was not the trade wars but the act of attempting to balance the budget by raising taxes in a recession that created the opposite of the effect of lowering taxes.. job killing, economy killing anti-stimulation. We know this works. But, just like in ClimateGate the Democrats are in full denial. They think this won't have that effect. That was just Republican talking points that lowering taxes increases tax revenue and stimulates the economy.... This bill is all about raising taxes and imposing controls on all levels of business via the huge new bureaucracies that this bill creates. A big tax increase is not what our economy needs at this very moment when we are teetering on the edge of an even greater precipice.

[padre35]

Smoot Hawley merely raised tariffs from 30 % to 50% or more, and the Depression began far before it passed.

However, the premise, that raising taxes and worse, injecting uncertainty into a consumer driven economy is possibly the worst situation imaginable.

[ex-snook]

Imagine if we were depending on Japan, Germany and China for importing war capacity. Thank you Smoot Hawley.

[SunkenCiv]

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 to "buy American" sounded like a good way to protect jobs by keeping out cheaper foreign products. Historians agree it was a mistake, setting off waves of retaliatory tariffs and making the Great Depression worse.

That's one reason Pat Buchanan isn't a historian.

[dfwgator]

“In 1930, the Republican controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the…Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act which, anyone? anyone? Raised or lowered?… Raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the US sank deeper into the Great Depression.”

[bert]

........it was not the trade wars but the act of attempting to balance the budget.....

AKA austerity or tight money

The Keynesians have been fretting about it ever since and their solution of massive loose money is now in process.