Having competitive tariffs on foreign goods and services would do a lot more to stimulate and grow the economy than the present system of Free Trade and high income taxes.
We have nothing like free trade. Our trading “partners” beat us to death with tariffs and duties of their own, which we bend over and take in the ass with a smile because it enriches certain segments of the population while pushing the bulk of the “middling people” farther down and out of the competition for resources. We absolutely need reciprocal tariffs to negate the artificial, manipulated advantages some of our “partners” have enjoyed for decades. That’s something government could do. But they’d rather strangle the survivors with regulations and use welfare to buy votes from their growing client class of impoverished Americans. If this trajectory doesn’t change, America will accept socialism within a decade or two—tops. And maybe that’s the plan.