Sans near-total embargoes on goods from a country, have we ever imposed sweeping tariffs of 145% on all goods coming from one of our most-imported trade partners?
No, no we have not. Certain tariffs were very targeted for specific reasons, you are correct. But those were not blanket-applied haphazardly at such high levels. Hence, "unprecedented".
This is another apples/oranges comparison.
Canada or the EU doing that and sorting their own food isn't the huge conspiracy against America that Trump seems to think it is.
To what degree relative to what we're seeing now, though?
Very free market.
When he called it "a hostile and political act".
Remember when just officially telling people that they are not horses turned out to be a free speech violation?
... You don't actually believe he cares about Bitcoin or the technology, right?
When the stock market (and confidence in the U.S.) falls, people typically flock to gold and bonds. If the U.S. is seen as unstable and at risk of not making debt payments, bonds are a bad place to move money into. That leaves gold (and to a lesser extent foreign stock markets).
With crypto though- that’s a con man’s wet dream. Volatile. No government oversight. Crypto pump and dumps are literally legal (though come close to being fraud, as people like Du Kwon have learned).
edit: ok, I didnt know that bussiness stop buying, but they must buy somethings in the future right either buy from other tax exempt or buy thing with add value tax
1. new 30% tax
2. people stop buying so many goods due to (1)
3. due to lack of demand, our shipping industry seizes up and goods stop flowing, at least till (1) goes away
My main source for that theory is https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-...
I’m curious when they plan on deploying this. It specifies a 3-year schedule so you think okay is this to be signed into law in 2025 so that the IRS is abolished during the next election year, or are they going to wait a year or two and have the IRS abolishment only “trigger” if Republicans continue to control the government beyond 2028? Or perhaps they will push it through if/when Democrats retake some or all of Congress in 2026?
One thing’s for sure though, the 1% will use cryptocurrency to dodge this consumption tax and it will (as usual) disproportionately affect the lower and middle classes, who aren’t as savvy in tax fraud/evasion/“loopholes”.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/25/t...
The idea that we would give up progressive taxes is pretty antithetical to their platform, given how many campaign on raising taxes on high income earners.
Given how slow even a single-party-controlled Congress is, I sincerely doubt such a bill would ever see the light of day.
The Senate still has the filibuster, as well. This will not pass in the current Congress either.
The filibuster rule is vulnerable, but I don't think there's enough support from Senate Republicans to do so. If I'm wrong, it would be an escalation which would add more fuel to the 2026 fire.
Also, I remember there being talk when the DINOs were voting with the Republicans of ending the filibuster…. So… I mean the current admin just ignores rules, why wouldn’t this be the Congress that ends the filibuster? This could be their one shot to implement the “Final Solution” (Project 2025).
All ordinary votes just require a simple majority, but the filibuster is sort of a special-case that can be invoked any time, requiring 60 votes to bring the vote to the table at all.
You're right -- if this Senate abolishes the filibuster, it will likely be for "budget votes only" or somesuch. The Senate isn't quite as full of short-term thinkers as the House is though. I don't think the Senate Rs will go for it, because it's the only thing stopping a future D majority from doing what majorities do, and smart Rs know they are a minority party under ordinary circumstances.
But if I'm wrong, it will mean that the Senate Rs are going for broke on a short-term play, and may be discounting future risks. That would be the behaviour of the very desperate, or of the very powerful.
If the Senate Rs believe they are one of those two things -- either one -- the consequences could be enormous.
This is all very dramatic of course. Normally I'd dismiss such ideas. But the temperature is very high right now, and this time might actually be different, this time...
Full sales and gasoline taxes, and relative to income, disproportionately more.
>Bottom half of the population pays ~zero taxes.
?
Not only is that not a “given”, I’d argue that you’re completely wrong. One doesn’t have to look very hard to find out how much income tax is paid by lower class: effectively zero.
1. Non-discretionary spending as a percentage of income is much larger for the lower (and middle) classes, who spend 100% or near 100% of their income on “essentials” like food and shelter.
2. The tax itself is obscene- 30% or thereabouts. As others have pointed out, the poorest of the poor don’t pay any income tax, and many essentials (like unprepared food) are not currently taxed. I don’t recall if the bill would add a tax on unprepared food. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does.
https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/tg_bulletins/st/listin...
There are about 10 that still charge taxes on groceries, but are considering phasing them out.
Shelter is always tax exempt. There is no tax on rent. Mortgages, if anything, come with a tax rebate, as amounts paid can be claimed against collected income taxes.
Also, you are wrong when you wrote, "Given that the lower and middle classes pay a disproportionate amount of income tax".
In fact, most Americans who earn under about $40,000 a year pay no federal income tax. I believe the vehicle that effects this outcome is mainly the earned income tax credit.
- Clothes - Shoes - Plumber/Electrician/Handyman - School supplies (though some states have tax holidays) - Gas/public transit - Car maintenance - Utility bills
> FairTax is a fixed rate sales tax proposal introduced as bill H.R. 25 in the United States Congress every year since 2005.
An R-GA sponsors it every year and it never gets further than "introduced", with fewer co-sponsors on it now than ever AFAIK. Technically, if it did get into law, it could create greater chaos, it has a provision to terminate itself if the 16th Amendment isn't repealed, so enough incompetence could eliminate taxes entirely.
Alternatively you can put the goods in a bonded warehouse[1], and leave it there until you wish to use it or transfer it to someone else. It's not free, but it allows you to postpone the declaration, and hence payment of tariffs, until you take the goods out of the bonded warehouse.
Typically a bonded warehouse requires physical security, paperwork and a bank guarantee to prevent goods disappearing, so it isn't free to keep goods there.
* Here's what I'm importing
* Here's where I'm importing it from
* Here's the value
Then you pay a bill based on that value and the tariff, and they let your goods clear customs and get loaded onto a truck to go wherever you want them to go in the US.
If you're shipping something by boat (like most goods), the "point of import" is the port.
Note: this is all actually much more complicated and individualized than I described because of networks of middlemen, logistics companies, distributors, manufacturers and lawyers.
Edit to add:
Better example for me was the semiconductor industry. It was hard for years to design hardware because key ICs would disappear. You needed to buy the ICs the moment you thought you might use them, a form of stockpiling that had no winner - it's very expensive to buy stock that you potentially never use, and it deprives the rest of the market simultaneously.
The tariffs are effectively a 30-150% price increase on all retail products, along with some marginal price increase on all manufactured goods. Given the nearly assured recession, it is unclear how willing American consumers and corporations are to eat this tax. Some businesses will take it out of the margin, others will pass it along.
Not true. If you have watched Shark Tank you have seen that products cost, as an example, $6 landed, but retail for $24. Tariffs are 145% of $6, so around $9. So they only have to increate the retail price from $24 to $33 to keep the same profit margin. In this example that's a 37% increase, not 145%.
We're about 1 or 2 months right now from some goods not being available in the US at any price. If people lost their mind over that happening during COVID, well, this is going to be just as bad.