Trump floats eliminating U.S. income tax and replacing it with tariffs on imports

CNBC ^ | June 13th, 2024 | Emily Wilkins and Kevin Breuninger

[shadowlands1960]

Key Points

-Donald Trump discussed the idea of imposing an “all tariff policy” that would ultimately enable the U.S. to get rid of the income tax, sources told CNBC.
-He also talked about using tariffs to leverage negotiating power over bad actors, according to another source in the room.
- Trump championed tariffs during his first term in the White House.

Donald Trump on Thursday brought up the idea of imposing an “all tariff policy” that would ultimately enable the U.S. to get rid of the income tax, sources in a private meeting with the Republican presidential candidate told CNBC.

Trump, in the meeting with GOP lawmakers at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., also talked about using tariffs to leverage negotiating power over bad actors, according to another source in the room.

The remarks show Trump, who championed tariffs as a foreign policy multi-tool during his first term in office, is considering a drastically more protectionist trade agenda if he defeats President Joe Biden in November.

[DiogenesLamp]

My point is, Democrats were opposed to the new Constitution from Day One, and have been opposed ever since, though their reasons change over the years, their opposition never did.

Well then it's an invalid point. "Democrats" did not exist until 1828 or so, when Andrew Jackson created the party.

Oddly enough, it was during Jackson's presidency (1835) that the US was last out of debt. Funny how all those bank advocating people seem to keep the US in Debt.

And if you bother to read the anti-federalist papers, you will discover many of the bad things they predicted would happen, *DID* happen. Including the civil war.

[central_va]

No, I am not emotional.

Like it or not, it’s not the 18th century any more

Tell that to the Adam Smith cult.

Our economy is too tied in with the rest of the world economy for us to go it alone. Consumers are too in love with cheap foreign stuff and don’t want to have to pay the higher prices that a strick Made In America policy would bring.

Horse poop.

[Wuli]

“So what has the lack of a tariff for 50 years done to industry?”

Tarriffs by themselves are not the only or main cause of U.S. domestic industry changes and they would not be the solution either.

[central_va]

Tarriffs by themselves are not the only or main cause of U.S. domestic industry changes and they would not be the solution either.

It was the lack of tariffs and Bushie globBULLism.

[Wuli]

“there is a domestic producer for anything and everthing
BUT THERE COULD BE.....”

Not likely and likely not a good for everything domestically either. Too many and too high of tarriffs will raise too many costs domestically and even make American made goods less competitive as exports.

People in favor of tarriffs ignore who pays the tarriff. Too many people think the tarriff is paid by someone in the exporting country. Not true. The exoorter in the exporting country do not pay the tarriff. The tarrif is paid by the company in the recieving country that is importing the good(s). That means someone in the U.S, pays the import tax. That means the cost is a cost paid in the U.S. by businesses in the U.S. That means costs for many things would go up.

I have explained before why it does not mean that tarrriffs automatically and universally create more domestic industry. The reason is that there is and always will be cases, thousands of cases, where (1) even with the tarrif costs an imported item may still be cheaper than a domestic one, and (2) a domestic manufacturer needing imported raw materials or parts for their U.S. domestic prodcution, who winds up paying more for what they need for production, seeing their costs rise, may see their exports, revenue and profits fall.

Most people’s notions of tarriffs are very simplistic. We are no longer a young nation with little industry of our own, little industriousness of our own, as was the case in 1789.

[Wuli]

“Globalist snakes forget there is a domestic market demand for all of those things.”

Simpletons ignore those industries create so many jobs domestically because those things are some of the U.S, top exports. Raise tarriffs on others and they will raise tarriffs on us and kill many of those exports and kill domestic jobs in the process.

Simpletons think tarriffs are a zero sum game. They are not. Tarriff wars are worse than trade wars.

[Wuli]

“It was the lack of tariffs”

GWBush raised the tarriffs on imported steel. It “saved” many domestic steel industry jobs but it cost a far much larger number of jobs affected by the resulting higher domestic and imported steel prices. It was a giant net job loser, not a gainer. Obama followed with duties on imported steel products. Trump followed with new tarriffs on imported steel.

Has any of it “saved” the U.S, domestic steel industry? Not really. U.S. Steel is in talks to sell itself to Nippon Steel.

Tarriffs can make a domestic industry lazy (resting on its protected laurels) leading to a failure to make the capital investments needed to modernize to do better than its foreign competitors. Meanwhile too much protections mean American workers incomes suffer from higher domestic costs. Tarriff wars are big creators of big recessions, only relieved by relief of tarriffs.

[central_va]

Not likey if we dont get rid of Free Traitors™. F'ing snakes all of them. Evil m'fers.

[central_va]

Killing the patient is not a cure.

[central_va]

Tariffs are patriot candy and free trade is the breakfast of traitors.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "During the 1930 trade was between 5% and 9%.
Smoot Hawley couldn’t have been 'devastating' "

Of course, that depends on your definition of "devastating".
Would you call the following numbers "devastating"?

1. 1928 -- US GDP = $97.4 billion
2. 1928 -- US unemployment rate = 3.2%
3. 1928 -- US foreign trade = $12.3 billion = 13% of GDP

4. 1934 -- US GDP = $66 billion = 1/3 reduction from 1928
5. 1933 -- US unemployment rate = 25.6% = 8 times increase from 1928
6. 1934 -- US foreign trade = $5.3 billion = 8% of GDP = 57% reduction from 1928

Yes, Smoot Hawley wasn't solely to blame, but it's worth remembering that by 1934, most European countries were already climbing back up out of the Great Depression, while the US never really did until the buildup for WWII around 1940.

central_va: "Makes a nice scapegoat for gloBULLists such as yourself."

Your fellow pro-Confederates are all in favor of lower tariffs, and even claim that Republicans' support for high tariffs in 1860 -- nowhere near as high as Smoot Hawley -- (not slavery), was the "real reason" for declarations of secession.

So, if you don't consider your fellow pro-Confederates to be "gloBULLists", maybe you can explain how that logic works?

[IAGeezer912]

Just a thought. If we also had a national sales tax (hear me out) then large purchases with drug money, etc would be taxed.

Most states already collect sales tax at cash registers so it could easily be added to the software. Just exempt grocery store purchases and children’s clothing, etc.

Everyone would immediately see what the Fed Gov was costing them.

The EU has what they call a VAT. The IRS has got to go.

[Wuli]

“Tariffs are patriot candy and free trade is the breakfast of traitors.”

A “nice” but erroneous slogan for populist simpletons who do not understand economics, not even economics of their own country.

[Wuli]

“Killing the patient is not a cure.”

Meaning what???

[BroJoeK]

Anti-Federalist, Democratic-Republican, Thomas Jefferson:

DiogenesLamp: "Well then it's an invalid point.
"Democrats" did not exist until 1828 or so, when Andrew Jackson created the party."

It was pretty much all the same people who just changed their party names from time to time:

How anti-Federalists became Democrats:

1. 1788 anti-Constitution, anti-Federalists including Jefferson became
2. 1790 Jefferson's anti-Administration faction in Pres. Washington's government, became
3. 1792 Jeffersonian "republicans" -- soon to be called "Democratic-Republicans" (because of Jefferson's admiration for the "Democratic" French Revolution -- "blood of tyrants" etc.)
   and soon after they dropped the word "Republicans" to call themselves just, "Democratics", then
4. 1828 Jeffersonian "Democratic-Republicans" -- NY's Van Buren and TN's Jackson -- officially changed their name to "Democratics" -- sometimes referred to as "The Democracy".

Young NY Sen. Martin Van Buren,
Democratic-Republican & Democrat Party Founder:

How Federalists became Republicans:

1. 1788 pro-Constitution Federalists became the Federalist party led by Washington, Adams & Hamilton
2. 1824 as the old Federalist party collapsed, most joined the National Republicans, aka "Adams-Clay Republicans"
3. 1833 National Republicans became Whigs led by Henry Clay
4. 1854 Whigs became Republicans

Of course there were some cross-overs, notably:

1. 1792 Federalist James Madison joined Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans
2. 1808 Federalist John Quincy Adams joined Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans
3. 1828 Democratic-Republican Adams led the National Republicans and then in
4. 1834 Old Congressman Adams joined the new Whig Party which is how he became a mentor in 1847 to young Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln.
5. 1797 young Henry Clay began as a Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican, in 1826 became a National Republican and in 1834 a Whig.

So, yes, there were some exceptions, but the general rule held that 1788 anti-Federalists became Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans and later Jacksonian Democrats, while 1788 Federalists became the Federalist Party, then 1824 National Republicans, 1834 Whigs and 1854 Republicans.

Both Democratics and Federalist-Whigs were national, not regional parties, however, the Democratics' center of gravity, it's base, was in the South while the Federalist-Whigs-Republicans base was Northerners.

Bottom line: same people, same ideas, changed party names over time.

DiogenesLamp: "Oddly enough, it was during Jackson's presidency (1835) that the US was last out of debt.
Funny how all those bank advocating people seem to keep the US in Debt."

Tennessee's Andrew Jackson,
Democratic-Republican & Democrat Party Founder:

I'm a huge fan of Andrew Jackson because to me he is almost unrecognizable as a Democrat -- everything I see in him says to me: "Federalist-Whig-Republican", not "Democrat", because Pres. Jackson:

1. Not just balanced the Federal budget, he
2. Not just paid down the national debt, he
3. Paid off the national debt.

4. Supported and kept the "Tariff of Abominations" high to generate enough revenues to pay off the Federal debt, and encourage American manufacturing
   -- Jackson Made America Great by Putting Americans First.
5. Sent Federal military forces to Charleston Harbor and threatened to hang rebels if South Carolina seceded over the 1830 Nullification Crisis.
   Then he reduced the high tariff rates a little, to mollify opponents.
6. Killed the Second National Bank in 1836, arguing it wasn't necessary, and so the US managed without one until 1913.
7. Under Jackson, US international trade recovered from a low of 17% of GDP in 1830 to 23% in 1835.

8. In foreign affairs, Jackson:
   • Negotiated trade agreements with Siam (Thailand), Great Britain, Spain, Russia and Ottoman Turkey.
   • Hard bargained settlements of US Napoleonic War era claims against Denmark, Portugal, Spain and France, US receipts worth circa $100 billion in today's equivalents.
   • Launched military operations to defend US interests in
     • Falkland Islands (1831)
     • Sumatra (Indonesia) (1833)
     • Argentina (1833)
     • Peru (1835)

9. Investigated and rooted out Washington, DC corruption, replacing around 10% of Federal employees with Democrat loyalists -- later called the "spoils system".
   I think Jackson's intentions were good, if not always the long-term results.

The one area where I can see Jackson as clearly a Democrat, then and now, is his Indian Removal Policies and the infamous "Trail of Tears".
Racial and other forms of discrimination -- aka "identity politics" or "woke" -- are at the core of what it means to be a Democrat, and in that, Jackson was certainly one.

DiogenesLamp: "And if you bother to read the anti-federalist papers, you will discover many of the bad things they predicted would happen, *DID* happen.
Including the civil war."

If true then, like any Democrats, they may have projected their own behavior and motives onto their political opponents, claiming it was Federalists who were authoritarians and monarchists, when, in fact, that was only their own mind-set, beginning when Democrats first came to power in 1801.

However, as for Anti-Federalist papers predicting secession and civil war -- naw, I don't think so, and will be interested to see whatever related quotes you can find and who, exactly, wrote them.

[central_va]

Offshoring of industries is not a cure. All indistrries need to be oprtected by a tariff. Then we can “fix” them or not. But they need to be here. Empty fields where factories stood is not prosperity. Even if you don’t like unions or regulations etc.

[Wuli]

“Offshoring of industries is not a cure.”

Never suggested it was>

“All indistrries need to be oprtected by a tariff.”

Not true. Some industries, some companies, would close in the U.S. due to tarriffs. I keep trying to remind you rasing tarrifs is not a zero sum game.

We do not need a Soviet style industrial policy, which is what would accrue from policies intend on “protecting” a every U.S, company.

[central_va]

The USA was FOUNDED on tariffs. The very first law passed by the first congress and sign by G. Washington was the Tariff Act. So were our founding fathers Stalinists?

Marx was a Free Trader and so are you. Hmmm..

[Wuli]

In 1789 the U.S. had a miniscule industrial base compared to the U.K. and others, and its overall trade situation was immensly differeent than today.

The two situations, 1789 and today, are an apples to oranges comparison.

[central_va]

The two situations, 1789 and today, are an apples to oranges comparison.

Today's situation is worse, radical globalist swine, such as yourself, are selling off our economic security and industrial base. Some call it treason.

...