Patrick Buchanan: Tariffs -- The Taxes That Made America Great

Cnsnews.com ^ | May 14, 2019 | 5:02 AM EDT | By Patrick J. Buchanan

[sparklite2]

There was a continuum of Jew-bashing that went like this ...

Pat Buchanan > Robert Novak > Joe Sobran > David Duke

[gogeo]

None. But he seems to have a disease found in many high achieving individuals. They spend a lifetime following assumptions that at some point may not apply. For example, many economists now retiring count Keynesian economics as the bedrock of their knowledge. That worked just fine for awhile, but not anymore.

Andrew McCarthy...worked for the Justice Dept for many years. Was an unabashed apologist for the FBI and Jim Comey...until he got past the assumption that both were incorruptible. Our assumptions blind us, and the more accomplished we are the more deeply rooted those assumptions are.

Kudlow is spouting boilerplate. Free trade, free trade, free trade...except what we have with China is not fair trade. "Free trade, free trade, free trade!" in this situation is destructive and counter productive. Getting the ChiComs to exercise free trade is the only winning strategy. Yes, it will involve pain...in this case, not so much for consumers but for the producers hit with counter tariffs.

We laugh when RATs engage in static analysis in regard to taxes. In the case of tariffs, many conservatives commit the same mistake. 25% tariffs on any item will not flow through to consumers.

Care to discuss?

[catnipman]

Patrick is 100% correct: the revenue for the nascent United States was almost 100% obtained from tariffs, with supplemental revenue from the Federal whiskey tax ...

[Poison Pill]

25% tariffs on any item will not flow through to consumers.

They already are

Get ready for more.

[gogeo]

Onlya if you believe static analysis is valid.

[ek_hornbeck]

A free trade evangelical, Kudlow

Kudlow is yet another example of the biggest problem in the Trump White House: the fact that his administration and senior advisors are almost to a man people who are opposed to Trump's own stated agenda on the issues (trade, immigration, foreign policy) that got Trump elected.

Often the strongest opposition to implementing Trump's agenda isn't Congressional Democrats or even Never-Trump Republicans, it's his own staff and administration.

Fortunately, the China tariff went through in spite of people like Kudlow, but why have someone like him there to begin with?

[Poison Pill]

Onlya if you believe static analysis is valid.

Here's some fresh data from the Fed you'll want to ignore...

Industrial production falls 0.5% amid big decline in auto output

[gogeo]

Ignore? What’s the point?

[Svartalfiar]

Yes, totally unrestricted free trade is more efficient than trade with barriers, BUT you have to maintain a manufacturing base for strategic products, AND trade with bilateral barriers is still more beneficial than trade with asymmetric barriers.

Unrestricted free trade only works when both entities have a fairly even playing field. Corporate subsidies, heavy/lack of regulations, varied cost of living, all of these can make that free trade very one-sided, and not really 'free'.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

I am in favor of true free trade, by which I mean that we get to sell our products in other countries at prices of our choosing, and they bet to sell their products here at prices of their choosing.

I don't have a problem with a tariff applied to retaliate against other countries that don't allow American products to be fairly priced.

And I don't have a problem with a tariff which is across the board and applied to all foreign products evenly for the purposes of raising general revenue.

What I do have a problem with are specific tariffs on specific products, targeted to protect the politically influential and big donors (sugar, steel, etc) from having to compete.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Then we need to deregulate American companies so they can better compete.

[Rashputin]

That can happen and has but the more common case is like China where they heavily, and I do mean heavily, subsidize steel and aluminum production exactly because the supply chain and manufacture of those two employ a lot of Chinese.

Tariffs on specific products that are subsidized so that we are not on a level playing field are exactly the right approach.