What most Americans already knew...
but obviously the person running to be the leader of
our country has no clue about! What could possibly go
wrong -lol!
"The more Donald Trump promises to impose dramatic
trade tariffs in a possible second term, the more
Democrats tell voters that the former president’s
policies would effectively impose a new national sales
tax on consumers. The Republican candidate has heard
these criticisms, and he doesn’t like them.
“I am NOT proposing a National Sales Tax, as the
Democrats say in their Advertisements against me,” he
wrote on his social media platform, adding that the
tariffs would paid for by other countries “and will
MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN!”
Part of the problem is that Trump, at the most basic of
levels, simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
It’s really just Economics 101: For all intents and
purposes, tariffs are effectively taxes paid by
businesses, which pass on the costs to consumers. They
are not paid by other countries, no matter how many
times he says otherwise.
The Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez summarized matters
nicely: “It is so, so bizarre that the core of Trump’s
policy agenda is based on just lying about how tariffs
work at the most basic, 101 level imaginable. It’s not
controversial. It’s not even complicated. It’s just a
lie. It’s like saying income taxes are paid by
leprechauns.”
Complicating matters, however, is that the confused GOP
nominee has also raised the possibility of trying to
replace taxes with tariffs. NBC News reported:
Trump said “there is a way” to eliminate federal taxes
when asked by a voter in New York City last week about
whether such a thing would be possible. “You know in
the old days when we were smart, when we were a smart
country, in the 1890s and all, this is when the country
was relatively the richest it ever was,” Trump said.
“It had all tariffs. It didn’t have an income tax.”
The former president added, “There is a way, if what
I’m planning comes out,” suggesting he genuinely
believes it’s possible to eliminate income taxes
entirely and rely on trade tariffs to replace the
revenue needed to fund the government and social-
insurance programs.
Making matters worse, of course, is the fact that Trump
doesn’t really understand tax policy, either. Consider,
for example, some of his recent campaign promises.
Work as a first-responder? You get a tax break. Need to
buy a generator for your home? You get a tax break,
too. An American living abroad? Tax break. Buying a new
American-made car? Tax break. Overtime pay? Tax break.
Tips? Tax break. Social Security benefits? Tax break.
All of these measures would be added to the tax breaks
he signed into law in 2017, which are due to expire,
but which he intends to extend, no matter how many
trillion of dollars it would add to the national debt.
It’s reached the point at which some of the
Republican’s own advisers have been surprised — and a
little concerned — about the haphazard nature of
Trump’s many campaign promises related to taxes.
How would all of these ideas work? Trump doesn’t know.
How much would these tax policies cost? Trump doesn’t
know. Who’d benefit from the measures? Trump doesn’t
know. How would he get such measures approved? Trump
doesn’t know. Why didn’t he pursue any of this during
his four-year term in the White House? Trump doesn’t
know.
The former president doesn’t have answers to any of
these questions because — and this is the important
part — they’re not actual tax policies.
Indeed, the most important thing to remember about
Trump’s tax plans is that they’re not actual tax plans.
They’re desperate grunts, blurted out without
forethought or vetting.
As we recently discussed, the Republican nominee is
just throwing random tax-cut ideas at a wall, hoping
they’ll make him more popular. What voters are
witnessing are the desperate ploys of a candidate who
(a) has no strategy to repair his campaign; (b) assumes
voters will hear the phrase “tax cut” and respond in
some kind of Pavlovian way; and (c) can’t even pretend
to know or care about governing.
But Trump is now apparently going further, suggesting
the United States might not even need income taxes —
thanks to tariff policies he only pretends to
understand. What could possibly go wrong?"
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