Free Republic

You work and get paid. To whom do your after-tax earnings belong? Do they all belong to you or does some portion of them belong to the neighborhood grocer whose store you patronize? Who should have first dibs on the money you've earned: you or the auto dealer who sold you the last car you bought? In both cases the correct answer indisputably seems to be “you.” But not so fast. Typical discussions of trade policy imply that the answers are “the grocer” and “the auto dealer.” When politicians promise to raise tariffs on imports, they are promising to penalize...

Someone earning $10,000 could be subject to maximum federal taxes under this limit of $1,500 per year. But someone earning 100 times as much at a million dollars would still be subject to maximum federal taxes of 100 times more, at $150,000 a year. The tax burden could still be skewed proportionally more to the upper income earners, but only by reducing the burden on the lower income earners. In other words, lower rates than 15% could still be imposed on those at the lower income levels, while the highest could still be subject to a top rate of 15%.

When it comes to taxes, depending on whichever conservative you talk to they all have a different idea on what sort of tax plan would work best. Some want a national sales Tax, some want an income tax, and some even want a Tariff. So why not UNIFY under a plan that ALL of us can get behind? Here is an idea that I have been thinking about that i have never seen before. I call it the "10% Flex" Tax plan. Why is it flexible? It is flexible as it would allow congress to control what TYPE of taxes...

"The U.S. Senate approved a bill May 12 that would overhaul the process for businesses requesting tariff suspensions and reductions." "The miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) establishes a new process for manufacturers to avoid having to pay tariffs on imported raw materials and intermediate products for which there are no suitable U.S.-based suppliers."

The ROOT CAUSE of our economic woes including business leaving our shores is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT unconstitutionally forcing minimum wage on business. Minimum wage, regulations, unions, and high taxes are THE CAUSE of businesses moving elsewhere. Federal government is the problem NOT the solution. Although I support Trump, his tariff proposals are MORE federal government and do NOTHING to attack the ROOT CAUSES of the loss of jobs in our country. Tariffs have the appearance but not the reality of a solution - they are only palliative and delay the actual reforms needed. A tariff is a tax and China...

Overregulation: Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s CEO Andy Puzder has people all in a huff over his idea to automate restaurants. But why be upset with Puzder? This is an inevitable consequence of massive minimum wage hikes by the government. “With government driving up the cost of labor, it’s driving down the number of jobs,” said Puzder. “You’re going to see automation not just in airports and grocery stores, but in restaurants.” He’s right. That’s why whenever the minimum wage rises above the market-set prevailing wage, jobs are destroyed. Who would pay someone $15 an hour to do a job that’s...

In an unusually strong protectionist action, President Reagan today ordered a tenfold increase in tariffs for imported heavyweight motorycles. The impact of Mr. Reagan's action, which followed the unanimous recommendation of his trade advisers, is effectively limited to Japanese manufacturers, which dominate every sector of the American motorycycle market. The action was exceptional for protecting a single American company, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company of Milwaukee, the sole surviving American maker of motorcycles.

A blogger recently complained that I (along with my fellow bloggers from George Mason University's Department of Economics) "seem to be shills for industry." This lazy accusation is as familiar as it is mistaken, for if I were truly a shill for industry ... • I'd be wealthy, raking in many more dollars than I now take in from my job as a professor at a state university. • I would not have come by my strong preference for freedom and free markets when I was still an undergraduate at Nicholls State University in south Louisiana. Corporations are not known...

The stupidest, lamest, and couldn’t-be-more-mistaken charge often leveled at those who find great merits in free markets (such as me and my colleagues at GMU Economics and the Mercatus Center, and my dear friends at institutions such as the Cato Institute and the Hoover Institution) is that we’re “bought off by” or are “paid shills for” rich business people. Such a charge or belief reflects an utter misunderstanding of economics and of how economies operate. Currently successful business people have a material interest in stifling at least some market competition and in themselves receiving handouts and special privileges from the...

Donald Trump played up his plans to tax companies that move jobs out of the United States as he tried to appeal to blue collar workers in a New York rally Sunday. Speaking for about an hour Sunday in Rochester, N.Y., Trump recited statistics about the area's loss of manufacturing jobs and economic hardship in recent years. He reiterated his desire to tax goods sold by companies once based in the United States that moved away to find cheaper labor. The plan has been widely panned by economic experts. But the Rochester crowd ate it up. "I'm the only one...

Cruz addresses a major reason for our trade deficit. However ... If something confuses people? It invites corruption. A handy rule of thumb in government. Are VATs confusing? Very. ~~~ Even explaining a VAT* is tough because there are many different kinds. Some alleged VATs aren't even VATs according to many. But I'll break it down into two categories: 1. A good VAT. 2. A bad VAT. ~~~ A Good VAT Senator Cruz proposes 'turning the tables' on Europe and other nations which are sneaking money back to corporations which give them jobs. In the nutshell, a good 'VAT' is...

As I understand it, a VAT tax is very different than a national sales tax because it taxes every level of production and distribution. That gives imported products a grossly unfair advantage. ~~~ For example -- the price of a screw. First the ore value is taxed. Then the smelted steel value is taxed. Then the steel distributer is taxed. Then after the screw is made, the value of the screw is screwed again. Then the screw wholesale value is screwed. Then the retail value is screwed again -- the only visible aspect of the tax. The rest of the...

[T]he point and purpose of trade is to gain access to those lovely imports from Johnny Foreigner. We only ever import what those foreigners can do better, cheaper, or (perhaps with in season foods) at different times from us. By definition, for the quality of the goods, they must be cheaper. Otherwise why would be bother with the ships and everything? Further, it must be a deal by our lights. None of us goes out and buys stuff we don’t think is worth the money we’re paying for it. This is true of stuff we can do in our own...

Donald Trump's threats to slap steep tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports may have won him votes in Republican primaries but they would likely backfire, severely disrupting U.S. manufacturers that increasingly depend on global supply chains. The Republican presidential front-runner's campaign pledges to impose 45 percent tariffs on all imports from China and 35 percent on many goods from Mexico would spark financial market turmoil and possibly even a recession, former trade negotiators, trade lawyers, economists and business executives told Reuters. "I don't mind trade wars when we're losing $58 billion a year," Trump said in a Feb. 25 debate,...

The Tariff We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries. We believe in protection as a national policy, with due and equal regard to all sections and to all classes. It is only by adherence to such a policy that the well being of the consumers can be safeguarded that there can be assured to American agriculture, to American labor and to American manufacturers a return to perpetrate American standards of life. A protective tariff is designed to support the high American economic level of life for the average family and to...

Levin: Populism is Progressivism, Which is Statism (audio: 12:41)

In a strongly worded editorial on Monday, China's official media criticised the rise of Donald Trump in the race to the White House, warning of severe consequences if he is elected US president. 'The rise of Trump has opened a Pandora's box in US society,' says the editorial published by the People's Daily and the Global Times newspapers, two mouthpieces of the Communist Party of China. 'Instead of pointing fingers at other countries for their so-called nationalism and tyranny, the US had better watch itself from becoming a source of destructive forces against world peace,' it says while underlining Trump's...

... Though from time to time trade protection can help specific groups, it always hurts the broad mass of workers and most firms. All consumers pay for the protection given some by losing access to less-expensive imports and suffering a consequent reduction in their living standards. Unprotected firms pay as well by having to spend more on inputs to their processes. They lose business by failing to deliver products to American consumers at lower prices and seeing their competitive edge in global markets weaken. Their growth slows accordingly, including their ability to create more jobs. A most dramatic, though hardly...

Claude Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) — a French classical liberal theorist, political economist and member of the French National Assembly — wrote an influential essay titled “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen.” He argued that when making laws or economic decisions, it is imperative that we examine not only what is seen but also what is unseen. In other words, examine the whole picture. Americans who support tariffs on foreign goods could benefit immensely from Bastiat’s admonition. A concrete example was the Bush administration’s 8% to 30% tariffs in 2002 on several types of imported steel. They...

Claude Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) -- a French classical liberal theorist, political economist and member of the French National Assembly -- wrote an influential essay titled "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen." Bastiat argued that when making laws or economic decisions, it is imperative that we examine not only what is seen but what is unseen. In other words, examine the whole picture. Americans who support tariffs on foreign goods could benefit immensely from Bastiat's admonition. A concrete example was the Bush administration's 8 to 30 percent tariffs in 2002 on several types of imported steel. They...