[WVKayaker]

How rude...

I'm a free trader. I think anybody should be able to buy anything from anywhere. With that statement, I must also say that in our original papers, we see the intent for imports to provide the tax base!!! Tariffs are a natural funding source and should be strictly enforced.

As for jobs in America, all we need is a Marshall Plan instead of a continuous bank bail-out. Spend the money on people, not yachts and offshore bank accounts. There are also lots of people who should go to jail, but instead will be rewarded.

[1rudeboy]

Tariffs are a funding source, yes (and "natural," according to the Constitution). But they are also anti-competitive . . . for example, it is difficult to find an economic justification for hamstringing U.S. producers in favor of those located in the E.U. When S. Korea signed its free-trade agreement with the E.U., it placed our companies at a competitive disadvantage.

The idea should be to find a way to make tariffs a funding source and an advantage.

[expat_panama]

Tariffs are a natural funding source

Agreed, and if we want more revenue we have to lower the rates.  People that use tariffs to control trade have to raise rates, and when they stop unwanted trade there's no imports for taxing.

[Niuhuru]

Half the stuff that business crooks have pulled over here, have gotten the same sort of people shot in China. I think the Chinese are smarter about corruption than we are; they have their peccadillos, but when they ahd an Enron-style scandal, the guilty got life in prison or the death penalty.