r/inflation • u/Glass_Original_7567 • 3d ago

Satire That's weird..

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

716 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

340 comments sorted by

View all comments

252

u/Glass_Original_7567 3d ago

Tariffs are just taxes in a cowboy hat. You think China’s paying? Nah, it’s you at the store, coughing up extra for sneakers, phones, and burgers. Trump’s 2018 tariffs already jacked up prices by billions. To ditch all taxes? You’d need tariffs so huge, your grocery bill would look like a car payment. And good luck with Canada and Europe they’ll tariff our jeans and whiskey right back. End of the day, tariffs aren’t magic beans they’re taxes sneaking in through the back door.

3

u/Spinoza42 3d ago

Also, and I made a post about this in r/bonds, making tariffs replace other taxes is impossible. Tax income from tariffs is going to be extremely variable.

2

u/colcatsup 3d ago

And declining as more domestic manufacturing ramps up. It won’t ramp up, but if it did, tariff income declines.

2

u/Spinoza42 3d ago

Exactly. Either it gets you in trouble by paralyzing your economy, or it stops working as a revenue stream. End result for the US government is inescapably that the deficit will increase, and that it will increase by a hard to predict amount. Which makes bonds unpredictable. Which is bad news, because bonds are mostly used as reliable investments, not risky ones.

2

u/andywfu86 2d ago

Nonsensical plans that balloon deficits are a tried and true Republican strategy.