Yes, that would explain how the price of the Ford Tarus dropped so dramatically in 1990 after the government imposed tariffs on it's main competition (the Accord and Camry) to level the playing field.
No, that's right. The prices of the Accord and Camry just went up, the quality of the Tarus still remained low (compared to the price being demanded) and the government didn't cut corporate taxes because of the tariffs they were collecting on the Accords and Camrys.
Except people were willing to buy Accords and Camrys over the Taurus because they were superior products worth the differrence in cost. They lowered their prices because the demand for Honda and Toyota prodcuts were higher than Ford products.
People had more money in the nineties and were willing to spend a little more for a better engineered product (many of which are built in the USA, where the Taurus is built in Mexico).
How do you know they didn't give Ford some kind of Tax assistance?