Free Republic

Donald Trump rocked Washington last week with his proposal to fund the federal government solely from tariffs. Until roughly a century ago, tariffs composed the vast majority of national revenue, but today income and business taxes make up the lion’s share. Can Uncle Sam go back? Taxing imports to pay Washington’s bills has a certain political appeal. Domestic taxes, often progressive in nature, are unpopular. Better to tax foreigners if we can. The problem with this thinking, however, is that non-Americans largely don’t pay for tariffs in the end; U.S. households and businesses do, in the form of higher prices...

President Trump recently floated the idea of eliminating the federal income tax. That tax became a fixture in 1913 when Congress ratified the 16th Amendment. The first U.S. Tax Code was about 400 pages. Today, with everything included, it’s more than 70,000 pages! Initially, the income tax was 1% on all incomes above $3,000 ($95,000 in today’s dollars) and applied to only 3% of the population. Today, the graduated rates start at 10% for families earning more than $30,000 and go up to 37% for families earning above $609,000. The rates vary greatly: The top 1% of taxpayers pay 45%...

One of the defining features of former President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was his – at least at the time – unorthodox opinions on trade. With the notable exception of Bernie Sanders, the other candidates parroted the longstanding bipartisan consensus on free trade. Trump promoted protectionist policies and tariffs.“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world,” Trump said at a 2016 campaign rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In his remarks on the campaign trail, you could hear echoes of his interviews from the...

Former President Donald Trump is putting American workers first— unlike the incumbent leader in the White House now. Trump discussed the proposal of eliminating taxes on servers' tips in his pitch for a new policy position that could inch him closer to victory in November. The former president introduced the idea during a rally in Nevada over the weekend where many Americans work at hotels, restaurants, and in the entertainment business and rely on tips to make ends meet. “This is the first time I've said this and for those hotel workers and people that get tips, you're going to...

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,...

President Biden has called for increasing tariffs on imports of steel from China. President Trump has also called for increasing tariffs on all goods from China. Although these tariffs may help with shifting some demand to United States steel, there is a cost involved to the consumer: inflation. The economy was strong during the Trump administration, but Forbes analyzed the effect of tariffs during that time. The conclusion was mixed, but the tariffs may not have been as positive as originally believed.Most economists agree that tariffs don’t always produce a boost in U.S. manufacturing. In addition, the cost of goods...

Not long ago, President Biden promised to transform the American auto industry — “first with carrots, now with sticks” is the analogy The Washington Post used. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’d trust the president to drive my car, much less dictate the future of industrial policy. Yet Biden implemented draconian emissions limits for all vehicles, ensuring that within nine years 67% of all new passenger cars and trucks will be electric. In the old days, a centralized state controlling manufacturing and commerce, production, prices, wages and conditions in our biggest sectors would be called...

Multiple polls are showing Joe Biden sinking into the abyss. Biden has been in denial about those polls for some time. President Biden is not convinced by recent polls that show he is facing a difficult election fight against former President Trump in November, and neither are many in his orbit.Some Democrats think Biden's in "denial" about his difficult posture and not taking his position seriously enough, according to Axios."The polling data has been wrong all along. How many — you guys do a poll at CNN," Biden told CNN last week. "How many folks you have to call to...

On Tuesday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted that President Joe Biden’s tariffs won’t cause any meaningful price increases for typical families and responded to a question on her criticism of the Trump tariffs as “taxes on consumers” by stating that Biden’s tariffs are different because they’re “are a targeted group of strategic sectors where we have developed a real overdependence on China.” Yellen said that with the Biden tariff regime, “I don’t think that anything will occur here that would be noticeable to the typical American family. Mainly, these tariff increases serve to protect firms and workers that...

This photo shows BYD electric cars awaiting to be loaded onto a ship at the international container terminal of Taicang Port at Suzhou Port, eastern Jiangsu Province, China, Sept. 11, 2023. (AFP Photo) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Biden administration is reportedly set to impose major new tariffs on electric vehicles (EVs), semiconductors, solar equipment and medical supplies imported from China, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the plan. Tariffs on electric vehicles, in particular, could quadruple from the existing 25% to 100%. The people described the plan on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide...

During an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen commented on President Joe Biden’s reported forthcoming announcement of increased tariffs on China by stating that the move is being made because President Joe Biden wants to protect “the stimulus that’s being provided through the Inflation Reduction Act” to support certain industries.

Breitbart economics editor John Carney said Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” that “overspending by the federal government” under the Biden administration caused inflation, not tariffs implemented by former President Donald Trump. Kudlow said, “Because Trump might raise tariffs or use tariffs as a tool to enforce reciprocity, they’re all up in arms saying tariffs will cause inflation but you say they will not?” Carney said, “They didn’t cause inflation. They screamed about inflation when Trump was president last time around and we didn’t see it. It just didn’t happen. I tracked month after month these numbers, everything you could...

The president made the announcement in an address to union workers in Pennsylvania.President Joe Biden called for tripling tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum Wednesday when he spoke to union members in battleground Pennsylvania. In remarks at the headquarters of the United Steel Workers, Biden said that China was "cheating" in its steel trade practices and that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative — the federal agency charged with developing U.S. trade policy — is investigating the Chinese government's practices tied to the trade of steel and aluminum. "If that investigation confirms these anti-competitive trade practices, then I’m calling...

Here we go again. The once and possibly future President Donald Trump’s proposal to implement a tariff of ten percent on goods imported into our Republic has been met with a cantillating chorus of critiques claiming they will come at a cruel cost to consumers. The Democrat-aligned Center for American Progress Action Fund has ginned up an analysis that it says shows the tariff would amount to an annual tax of roughly $1,500 on American families. The dire forecast creates the illusion of precision and analytical depth by estimating that households would pay $90 more for food, $90 more for...

The Biden administration is considering a new set of tariffs on some steel imports that would increase food prices for consumers already reeling from the recent run of high inflation. The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission are considering a petition that would impose tariffs of up to 300 percent on tinplate steel, a key component in tin cans like those commonly used to pack food products including tuna, soup, baked beans, and more. If the administration decides to implement those tariffs on imports from eight countries, it would be a blatantly protectionist maneuver aimed at benefitting a single...

Most of the travelers during the Monday lunch rush seemed oblivious to one special guest — the man who could be the next president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Republican snuck in and out of the Coalinga landmark undetected by the public nor the media, by design. He flew in and out of the nearby Coalinga airport, ushered to the back loading docks by unmarked Fresno County Sheriff’s vehicles. ... The Florida governor also talked about global supply chain problems and China, and “how to make life better for the people here in the United States,” Maher said. Others reported...

Four Republican senators are cosponsoring a bill that the Washington Post says “would lay the groundwork for America’s first carbon border tax,” a move some critics warn could result in a domestic carbon tax. Senators Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) are cosponsoring the “Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable Emissions Intensity and Transparency (PROVE IT) Act,” which calls for the government to study the carbon emissions of products produced in both the United States and foreign countries. Other cosponsors of the bill, introduced Wednesday, are Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Angus King (I-Maine), Martin Heinrich...

China This week, after Biden vetoed a House and Senate-approved plan to reinstate the tariffs on solar panel imports, 197 House Democrats and eight House Republicans voted to help the administration stave off the tariffs. (snip) From 2001 to 2018, U.S. free trade with China eliminated 3.7 million American jobs from the economy — 2.8 million of which were lost in American manufacturing. During that same period, at least 50,000 American manufacturing plants closed down. Those massive job losses have coincided with a booming U.S.-China trade deficit. In 1985, before China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO), the U.S. trade...

Just yesterday Breitbart News reported that eight House Republicans joined the Democrats to support Joe Biden’s suspension of United States tariffs on suspected Chinese-manufactured solar panels. Last 2022, Biden announced a 24-month suspension of tariffs on solar panel imports from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The suspension came despite Biden’s Commerce Department official's discovery that the solar panels in question were actually manufactured in China. The China-based BYD based in Hong Kong is said to have rerouted its products through Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam for the sole purpose of evading the tariffs.Biden being soft on China should come not to...

Former President Donald Trump unveiled a key talking point for his 2024 campaign - an "America First" trade plan which would include universal tariffs on most goods imported into the US. Trump laid it out in a Feb. 27 statement, which called for a system of universal baseline tariffs on most foreign products, while rewarding American domestic production. The new policy will "tax China to build up America," according to Trump."Joe Biden claims to support American manufacturing, but in reality, he is pushing the same pro-China globalist agenda that ripped the industrial heart out of our country," Trump said in...