Until the 20th Century the Federal government was adequately funded on tariffs and fees. It wasn’t until the constitution was amended to institutionalize the income tax that revenue was sufficient to support big government programs and constituencies demanding more federal dollars.
Tariffs also provided protection from foreign competition for emerging US manufacturing. If we want to rebuild our manufacturing base, and pay down the debt, we need to seriously look at higher tariffs. Our population is large enough to support our manufacturing. No matter what the globalists say, higher tariffs will benefit US manufacturing and permit more jobs to be created in America.
Agreed. We will have to eventually go to higher tariffs on imports, as inflation destroys us,and the economy goes south. We will have to rebuild, and that means higher tariffs on imports for 20 years or more.