[ConservativeMind]

“Trump is proposing tariffs which would, for example, inflict pain on consumers in order to protect manufacturing workers.”

Tariffs are simply taxes. You seem to believe that the excise tax being raised, while the income tax goes lower, is a net negative. Excise taxes only penalize buying products that never employed a single US worker and never paid a single US tax, likely made in a country that penalizes our own US products introduced into that country. As for Mexico, we even have millions of their citizens in our jails at daily rates of $180 and the rest roam free without background checks.

The idea that we won't see a net benefit as we move forward with excise taxes under Trump is fallacious.

[nathanbedford]

You commenced by quoting me as follows:

“Trump is proposing tariffs which would, for example, inflict pain on consumers in order to protect manufacturing workers.”

But then you conclude with the following as though you had never even read what you quoted:

The idea that we won't see a net benefit as we move forward with excise taxes under Trump is fallacious.

What you write in between either has nothing whatever to do with my reply or is otherwise utterly irrelevant.

The point of my reply was that trade policy inevitably forces choices possibly hurting some parts of our economy while it may or may not favor other parts of our economy. Heretofor those choices have not been part of the consciousness of the voting public to a degree that is interfered with the special interests control over that policy.

You might be right, it might be on balance better to make consumers pay more for imported goods in order to shelter manufacturing jobs, or it might not. Mere conclusionary language, or distortion of data, or emotional appeals no matter how compelling concerning illegal immigrants, does not help us as a nation operating as a representative democracy decide who gets hurt and who gets helped.