Tariffs.
America needs to begin using tariffs.
But it has to be UNIVERSAL. The government should have zero power to levy or rescind tariffs except in total.
We start by charging (everything) imported into America a 10% tariff. By this I mean everything.
Food. Gas. Anything which enters America.
This will also help pay down our national debt.
America has never had a universal tariff.
“We start by charging (everything) imported into America a 10% tariff. By this I mean everything.”
In 1960 the average tariff was 7.3%. Today it is 1.3%. I would agree that 10% is more than a reasonable fee to apply to foreign factories for access to the US market. After all the US taxpayer pays to maintain ports, the Coast Guard, the US Navy to keep the seas open, the Customs service to inspect goods coming in, and a highway system to give the ports access to inland markets. Why should foreign factories and importers receive these services at no charge?
Personally I’d like to see tariffs raised to the average 25% to 35% rates the US employed from 1865 to 1900. During that period the US became an industrial power using high tariffs to protect developing industry. Over the past 20 years we engaged in ruinous free trade policies that gutted our manufacturing sector, exported millions of middle class jobs, and resulted in two decades of declining standard of living for most Americans for the first time in our history.
We’ve played the low tariff game for 25 years and the verdict is in with respect to the economy and the American people. It has been a disaster for all except those at the very top and the multinational corporations. It is time to rebuild our industrial infrastructure and to do so we need to adopt the tariff policy we employed successfully to become the greatest industrial power on the planet.
We would be better off economically eliminating the corporate income tax on profits derived from production inside the US, and raising tariffs to offset the revenue, than to continue raising margin rates on individual income or continuing the recent practice of hiding new taxes in our healthcare costs.
Our policies over the past 25 years have allowed China to become a global power and emerge as a long term military threat to the homeland. Enacting high tariffs now will stop Chinese industrial expansion in its tracks while providing a powerful economic incentive for investment in US manufacturing expansion.
China today levies a VAT on all imports ranging from 13% to 17% plus additional duties and tariffs depending on the product category. In addition the Chinese government subsidizes its manufacturing industry with low or no interest loans and export rebates up to 25%. Add to that the slave labor wages of $1.00 per day and the standard 10 hour factory day. No wonder US manufacturing has been decimated over the past 25 years while we’ve dropped our tariffs to virtually zero and eliminated non-tariff barriers to trade (i.e. quotas).
Restoring the tariff is essential to restoring the US economy. Unfortunately our Congresspeople in both parties are beholden to multinational corporations and Wall Street banks earning billions from gutting the US economy.
For those who believe the academic free trade propaganda that the Smoot Hawley tariff cause the Great Depression, consider some facts:
1) Smoot was passed in 1930, after the 1929 market crash when the economy was already in a nosedive. The tariff did not cause the collapse.
2) When Smoot was passed, US manufacturing exports comprised less than 2.5% of GDP and total exports were less than 5% of GDP. From the 1929 crash to the bottom of the Depression in 1933, GDP dropped 50%. If the US had lost 100% of its exports during that period (which it did not), the most the loss of exports could have affected GDP was 5%.
History in fact shows the US economy prospered during periods of high tariffs (19th Century) and has stagnated during the low tariff periods from 1988 to the present.
The fact is the US has the land mass, natural resources, technology base, and population to be self sufficient as it was through much of its history. We should be reinstating high tariffs now where there is still some manufacturing base remaining on which to build. Also, rebuild now where we have a military infrastructure strong enough to discourage our enemies from retaliating against the US for applying higher tariffs.
We are in an economic war with China and will likely be in a military war within 25 years if we don’t take action now to rebuild our economic system and stop subsidizing the industrialization of our emerging enemy.
“We start by charging (everything) imported into America a 10% tariff. By this I mean everything.
Food. Gas. Anything which enters America.”
Cool! Raising the prices we pay for everything by 10% is a great idea./sarc
Did you also protest at burger doodle to raise the minimum wage?
Our Founders would have applauded this plan.