March 30, 2021
Re: Income Tax vs. Tariffs
The Cato Institute and Elizabeth Warren are both full of crap.
Before Woodrow Wilson’s implementation of the income tax, the entire U.S. govt. was paid by tariffs. The original income tax was implemented to "only tax the rich.â€
Since then, who really writes the tax laws ? Do you think that the tax laws are written by the door knobs in Congress ? The tax laws are written by the big campaign donors, handed to the door knobs, and passed into law. The average citizen and Joe Schmoo have no access to these preferential tax treatments. Moreover, the big campaign donors assure that the IRS and other tax authorities slow walk anything that the big donors don’t want. The tax burden shifts onto the small guy.
Admittedly the unfortunate Smoot-Haley tariffs were applied during the vulnerable years of the Great Depression. The incipient cause of the 1929 Stock Market Crash was the Great Flood of 1927 ( an Extreme Weather event). It was further exacerbated by a generation of European working age men lost to the trenches of WW-I, plus the Dust Bowl which reached its depths in 1934 ( the TRUE "hottest year on recordâ€).
Tariffs at the current period of relative financial stability do several positive things:
1) They encourage manufacturers (foreign and domestic) to locate manufacturing here.
2) Tariffs can be selective. Say, no tariffs on citrus crops or other
foods which we desire in the winter and will aid Central America to
keep their people employed in their own nations.
3) On an ongoing
basis we don’t see how much of the income tax burden the small guy
really pays. Big guys can dodge it. With tariffs, the cost is more
readily obvious and big guys share the same interests as the small guy.
Hammer govt. down to size and thereby reduce tariffs over time. Starve
the beast.
The Great Depression was caused in no small part by bad monetary policy on the part of the Federal Reserve. Through the '20's they had a loose fiscal policy, allowing the currency to inflate and thus triggering a boom. But at the end of the '20's they suddenly contracted the money supply. This was likely done to slow the economy so it wouldn't "overheat" and it had the desired effect; with the loss of liquidity there wound up being a stock market crash and bank runs.
The M1 money supply decreased by no less than 25% The M2 contracted by 30%. (The M2 money supply includes all cash, checking deposits, and convertible money, as opposed to simple cash as in M1.)
Smoot-Hawley was a mistake, but not because tariffs are bad but because it was a terrible idea to raise ANY taxes during such a financial crisis. The Depression of 1921 ended quite quickly (despite being every bit as bad as the Great Depression in terms of financial destructiveness) because of major tax cuts made by the Harding and Coolidge Administrations. The first cut in November of '21 reduced marginal tax rates by 13.8%. The second in June of '24 reduced rates another 7.5%. Couple this with an inflationary monetary policy and the stage was set for the "roaring twenties". The top marginal rate dropped from 76% to 25%.
It should be pointed out the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, and the Income tax imposed that same year. There would be three major depressions in the following 20 years as a result. (The post-war depression of 1919, the depression of 21, and the Great Depression.)
The immediate response to the stock market crash was to raise taxes.
Starting from .375% in 1929, the lowest rate tripled to 1.125% in 1930, and then increased again by more than 3.5 times to 4% in 1932.
Smoot-Hawley was just one piece of a very large, badly managed puzzle.
I agree; tariffs are more fair than our current system which squeezes the middle class. Everyone pays them when they buy something. And its not a direct tax, something the Founding Fathers studiously sought to avoid.
Big businesses hate tariffs. That is because they want to buy stuff as cheaply as possible and sell their products at the highest profit margin. Since the big money class pretty much owns America these days the war on tariffs will continue, and any suggestion of imposing tariffs will be met with the same hatred as suggesting we close the border or reform social security. It is a big reason why Donald Trump was so loathed by the D.C. Swamp.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
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