Buttigieg Would Lift 'Counterproductive' Tariffs, Which Are Just Taxes on Americans

"Tariffs are taxes on Americans—and we talk as if that's not the case; we forget that Americans are paying them," says Pete Buttigieg. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but unfortunately it is.

If elected president, Pete Buttigieg says, he would remove Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports.

In the meantime, he'll settle for just calling them what they are.

"Tariffs are taxes on Americans—and we talk as if that's not the case; we forget that Americans are paying them," Buttigieg said this morning.

That shouldn't really be noteworthy, but unfortunately it is. President Trump has routinely, and falsely, claimed that the tariffs are being paid by China. On Wednesday, while facing questions from Rep. Cindy Axne (D–Iowa), Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tied himself into knots in a hilarious attempt to avoid admitting that tariffs are taxes.

.@RepCindyAxne: Are you in agreement that American consumers will pay more as a result of tariffs?

MNUCHIN: I don't necessarily agree with that, no.

AXNE: So you disagree with all of our key retailers and economists who say they will?

MNUCHIN: ¯_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/ZaTFg2l0FM

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 22, 2019

Mnuchin is the latest in a long line of Trump administration officials put in the awkward position of trying to balance economic reality with the president's private reality. Trump was reportedly unhappy after Larry Kudlow, a senior economic aide, earlier this month admitted that tariffs are being paid by Americans.

Though he voiced some support for the Trump administration's overall goal of reshaping China's behavior, Buttigieg said the use of tariffs has been "counterproductive" and he promised to move in a different direction if he finds himself in the White House in January 2021.

"Tariffs aren't going to get China to change its economic model or its regional security strategy," said Buttigieg.

Those comments were part of a wide-ranging and at times rapid-fire interview with The Washington Post's Robert Costa. Buttigieg, the current mayor of South Bend, Indiana, held his own while facing questions about domestic and foreign policy, his personal life, and the Trump presidency. He said he would support impeachment proceedings against the president—though he also dismissed the entire mess as being too D.C.-centric to interest most Americans. He also dismissed the notion that he's too baby-faced to stand on a debate stage with someone like Trump. "I don't have a problem of standing up to somebody who was working on Season 7 of The Apprentice while I was packing my bags to go to Afghanistan," he said, a line that seems destined for heavy rotation on the campaign trail.

As he's done before, Buttigieg distanced himself from the Democratic Party's left flank. Calling himself a "democratic capitalist," he said that Democrats have erred for decades by not talking enough about freedom.

That's something that might attract curious libertarians to his campaign, but as Reason's Zuri Davis and others have noted, those statements aren't quite what they appear. Buttigieg frequently backs them up with promises of greater government involvement in personal and business affairs. For example, on Thursday he argued that bigger government can help freedom by limiting bad outcomes created by the marketplace—like the credit card companies he accused of staking the deck against low-income Americans through mandatory arbitration clauses.

When it comes to trade, Buttigieg's tack away from the left makes a lot of sense. Polls show Democratic voters—probably due, at least in part, to their distaste for Trump—swinging toward greater support for free trade. A Hill-Harris poll released earlier this month found that 58 percent of Democrats believe Trump's trade negotiations with China would result in fewer jobs and less economic opportunity. Democratic pollster Simon Rosenberg has pointed out that Trump's approval rating has been sinking in states where the trade war has been most damaging, including such electorally important states as Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

As the mayor of a Midwestern city, Buttigieg may be uniquely positioned to bring a key message to Trump voters: that tariffs aren't the answer to their economic woes and that Trump's trade policies are not producing his promised results. At the very least, it's good to have another sane voice in a trade debate that's grown increasingly maddening.

Comments

[John]

Just ignore the fact that he would raise other taxes through the roof.

As the mayor of a Midwestern city, Buttigieg may be uniquely positioned to bring a key message to Trump voters: that tariffs aren’t the answer to their economic woes and that Trump’s trade policies are not producing his promised results. At the very least, it’s good to have another sane voice in a trade debate that’s grown increasingly maddening.

No, he is the mayor of a large town and a town that is one of the poorest and worst run in the country. And yes Trump’s economic policies are producing the results people want. Wages are rising for the first time in a decade, unemployment is the lowest it has been in over 50 years, and growth is at or near 3%, something that was supposed to be impossible.

So, no this creepy little bastard has nothing to offer.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Wow. If you think the economy is good you obviously haven’t been paying attention to Palin’s Buttplug’s comments. Face it, we’re in the #DrumpfRecession.

PS — Low unemployment just means people need to work two jobs to survive.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

At least John and OBL both agree that the economy depends solely on the President’s fidling with the economy dial hidden under the desk in the Oval Office.

[John]

So economic policy doesn’t matter? The claim was that Trump was going to destroy the economy with a (be sure to slobber a bit and say it loud) TRADE WAR!!

That hasn’t happened. In fact the economy has done great. Now correlation does not prove causation but it doesn’t rule it out either. There really is no amount of counter evidence that would cause you to modify your economic views. It is just a fucking religion to you people.

[jcw]

President Trump is pissing on the american people with these tariffs.

[Chuckles the Snarky Piggy]

You are pissing on the commenters with your baseless comment.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Yeah, we should just roll over for China, and the EU. That would be much better.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Have you considered the possibility that the economy is doing great DESPITE all the things Trump is doing to fuck it up? Or that Trump’s meddling in the economy has a delayed effect that we will feel in a couple of years?

The economy is very complicated. You, or anyone else, even experts that spend their whole lives on this, can successfully predict how the economy will do. No one can beat the stock index funds, for example. So it is sheer hubris to claim that the current state of the economy can be directly attributable to some action by the President. All we have to go by are economic principles deduced from logic that apply to single factors. Such as putting a tariff on a good will lead to an increase in the price of that good, for example.

[John]

Have you considered the possibility that the economy is doing great DESPITE all the things Trump is doing to fuck it up? Or that Trump’s meddling in the economy has a delayed effect that we will feel in a couple of years?

Sure. Which part of “correlation doesn’t always equal causation” that I stated above did you not understand? Should I use smaller words?

And of course you are doing exactly what you are claiming I am doing and saying that it must be in spite of Trump’s policies. That is even less compelling than correlation. Correlation is strong evidence. It is just not conclusive evidence. You in contrast have no evidence it is in spite of it.

The bottom line is that you and your ilk predicted disaster from these tarriffs and none of your predictions have come true. That is pretty good reason to examine your assumptions and perhaps modify them. You dont’ and never will because you are just religious fanatics. You don’t care about the actual results of policies. You care about the dogma.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

John, why do you always descend into ad hominem in a discussion? I just invites the other person to return the favor. Perhaps you like the abuse?

I never predicted “disaster” with the tariffs. I predicted negative consequences based on simple economic logic. Please do explain your economic logic about how tariffs are beneficial. And as for the negative consequences, do you understand the concept of delayed effects? It could take years for some negative consequences to propagate through the structure of production.

[John]

The economic logic is this, people other than China make these goods and markets adjust. You don’t have any economic logic. What you have is the fantasy that only China can provide these goods and the US nor anyone else ever could and markets somehow lose their power to adjust when it comes to tarriffs.

I am not saying that these things are without costs. They are not. But they come with benefits too. Namely forcing China to open up their markets, encouraging production to move to the US and not sending our money to one of the worst regimes on earth. Your “economic logic” is nothing but a God damne fairytail told to serve as a rationalization for your own self interests.

[John]

And there is not a single piece of ad homenim in there. Ad hominem is where someone says an argument is wrong because of who is making it. That is not what I am saying. I am saying your argument is wrong and that fact makes you stupid. That is not ad homenim that is argument followed by a personal attack.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

No, ad hominem is simply attacking the person, rather than the argument. It does not require claiming the argument is wrong because of the person making the argument. What you are describing is better described as the genetic fallacy.

[John]

No it isn’t. It is saying the argument is wrong because of who the person is. And that is the opposite of what I am doing here. It is a personal attack. But that doesn’t make it a fallacy

[DesigNate]

“Ad hominem (Latin for “to the person”[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.” – Wikipedia definition.

So you’re both wrong.

[TripK]

So the term “ad hominem” is wrongly applied to this situation.
Sounds like John is just an asshole that likes to insult people rather than having a discussion like a respectable adult.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Actually Trip, I would apply that observation to John’s detractors.

[Teddy Pump]

The corporate tax cuts & extensive de-regulation by Trump has turned the economy around, along with simply getting rid of a POS Prog-Tard like Obummy…..Trump’s over-spending may derail it!

The Tariff War with China could possibly lead to a recession…The easy thing for Trump would’ve been to leave China be & continue the Status Quo like the other presidents before him…He is taking a big chance here, with reelection coming up, so I think no matter what one thinks of Trump and his policies, he is putting America before his reelection & that is noble!

[Kevin Smith]

Its not so much the policy as it is the perception of the policymaker. You’ll notice the economy started picking up almost immediately after Trump was elected, before he was even inaugurated (let alone set any economic policies)

[Last of the Shitlords]

Investors knew they weren’t going to be crushed by The Hag’s awful policies and regulations. And they were right. I personally know people who kept their money on the sidelines because they were afraid what Hillary might do as president.

[Colossal Douchebag]

What do you mean, “you people”?

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Obviously the President makes a huge difference. Five years ago we were in the middle of the strongest economy in American history. Now it’s all ruined. And what changed? Obama left office and Drumpf succeeded him.

But don’t take my word for it. Paul Krugman, perhaps the greatest living economist, said Drumpf’s victory would cause “a global recession, with no end in sight.”

[Chipper Morning Wood]

For the sake of argument, let us say that the President can directly influence the economy with some magic action. How long do you think it takes for that magic action to propagate through the structure of production? For example, let’s say the President puts a tariff on a capital good used to make parts for an assembly line robot that us used in an automobile assembly chain. How long before that effect is felt on the consumer prices of the automobile?

[Don't look at me!]

Well, if it’s like the price of oil to affect the price of gasoline, about 15 minutes.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

And if it’s like the Fed interest rate, it could be years. Perhaps my example was not the best one, because it involved a direct chain of goods for which the effect of the price of a capital good could be directly calculated to adjust the price of a consumer good. I was thinking more in terms of the effects on the investment in capital goods for consumer goods for which the demand cannot be accurately predicted. People will always demand gas at about the same rate. The same cannot necessarily be said for new cars.

[Quality Beef]

“you obviously haven’t been paying attention to Palin’s Buttplug’s comments”

Correct, I have no use for child pornography.

[mad.casual]

No, he is the mayor of a large town and a town that is one of the poorest and worst run in the country. And yes Trump’s economic policies are producing the results people want. Wages are rising for the first time in a decade, unemployment is the lowest it has been in over 50 years, and growth is at or near 3%, something that was supposed to be impossible.

Trump has done more to help the people of S. Bend in less than one Presidential term than Mayor Pete has done in more than two.

[Agammamon]

Its amazing how much faith people put in the power of a President.

Trump has hardly done anything in three years but the upturn in the economy is solely due to *his* actions. Not a cyclic thing. Just him. He signed a couple letters, implemented a whole bunch of stealth taxes, repealed a couple regulations and that was all that was needed to reverse a downward trend in the economy that started before the previous President even took office.

[Don't look at me!]

8 year cycle?

[Agammamon]

Try 12 plus year cycle.

[mad.casual]

Trump has hardly done anything in three years but the upturn in the economy is solely due to *his* actions. Not a cyclic thing. Just him. He signed a couple letters, implemented a whole bunch of stealth taxes, repealed a couple regulations and that was all that was needed to reverse a downward trend in the economy that started before the previous President even took office.

Again, we were promised Hitler and are getting Bill Clinton.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Minus the cunt of a wife, the high treason, and all the rapes.

[Juice]

Wages and prices are rising for the first time in a decade, unemployment is the lowest it has been in over 50 years, and growth is at or near 3% with inflation at least at that level, something that was supposed to be impossible.

[AER1972]

thank you

[loveconstitution1789]

Eactly John.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Yeah, I call bullshit on this little turd Buttgag being some kind of free trader. The little fanny bandit is a fucking socialist shitbird. He would saddle us with AOC’s green bullshit and crippling taxes.

Give me Trump any day over this turd.

[John]

And Buttigieg wants to tear down all of the Thomas Jefferson statues and monuments. So, I guess he really is playing for the wokeltarian vote.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Does he support reparations for slavery? If yes, he might join Harris and Warren in my top tier.

#LibertariansForReparations

[Dillinger]

why stop @reparations when we can give the whole thing back to the French, Spanish and Hopi?

[Quality Beef]

That won’t work either, they all owned slaves.

[RoyMo]

Only if the Hopi pay reparations for Awatovi

[Dillinger]

shouldn’t have converted.

[Millennial Lawyer]

They’re not counterproductive at all. American importers will simply look to Mexico, Vietnam, South Korea — or even the good ol’ USA — instead of continuing to enable the rise of a Communist global superpower with imperialistic ambitions.

This is really quite simple but the “free trade” dolts at Reason still don’t get it:

1. We bring domestic industry to the brink of death with environmental regulations, labor regulations, many other regulations, and taxes.

2. We allow countries who have none of those taxes, and none of those regulations, whose workers operate in slave labor-like conditions, and whose Communist governments subsidize their industries, to bring the products of their industry into our country tax-free. A very unequal arrangement.

That’s economic suicide for the American people.

[John]

+1000

[Magnitogorsk]

How terrible that we are able to buy things for less money. Certainly that can’t have any positive economic effects. And foreign taxpayers are subsidizing stuff for us? The horror!

[John]

That is right because consumers are the only economic sector that matters and ensuring they have access to cheap shit the only legitimate national priority or interest.

[Magnitogorsk]

Consumers are not the only sector that imports things from China

[John]

So what? Does that somehow make funding their police state and military and allowing them to commit industrial espionage on a grand scale a good idea? Couldn’t you get your cheap shit from some country that doesn’t terrorize its neighbors and oppress its population?

[damikesc]

The industrial espionage is a huge concern. Again, companies give them EVERYTHING to have access to their market. Which is temporary until China, of course, replaces them with their own version.

Until people who proclaimed that this trade war would be a very bad thing can present the very bad thing occurring, then I cannot take it seriously.

[Millennial Lawyer]

Magnitogorsk – Sure, there can be short term benefits like that. But you’re being myopic and missing the big picture.

Here’s what Adam Smith said: “It will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign industry for the encouragement of domestic industry, when some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of the former. This would not give the monopoly of the borne market to domestic industry, nor turn towards a particular employment a greater share of the stock and labour of the country, than what would naturally go to it. It would only hinder any part of what would naturally go to it from being turned away by the tax into a less natural direction, and would leave the competition between foreign and domestic industry, after the tax, as nearly as possible upon the same footing as before it.”

And here’s an article you might find worthwhile: https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2018/10/16/free-trade-doesnt-work-allegory/

“You own an artisanal bakery that makes the best $2 baguettes in town—business is booming. In fact, business is so good that a German bakery opens up across the street. You’re not worried: their $3 baguettes are good, but not that good. You’re sure you can out-compete them in good ol’ American fashion—and let’s be honest, who’s ever heard of German baguettes?

A month later you notice baguette sales are down. Why? You walk across the street to compare sales with the German bakery, and you see a sign: “Baguettes Now $1”. How could they possibly afford to bake such cheap baguettes? The lederhosen-clad owner tells you that the government is paying for his flour—that’s why his baguettes only cost $1. “That’s not fair!” you exclaim. “What can I say?” he replies.

A few months pass. Baguette sales are down, and you’ve done everything you can to cut costs: you’ve switched flour providers, fired staff, and worked longer hours. But the cheapest baguette you can bake still costs $1.50—it’s cheap, but not that cheap. No matter what you do, you cannot compete with the German bakery. Uncle Sam’s pockets are too deep. Reluctantly, you close shop.

A few months later you’re buying a baguette at the German bakery. You see a sign: “Baguette’s Now $3.” Excuse me, what happened to the cheap baguettes? The owner says that since there’s no competition, he can raise prices and make big profits.

Later that night you tell your family what happened over dinner. Your son, an economics student at Harvard, advises you to reopen your bakery. You wince—as if you hadn’t thought of that. “I can’t,” you say, “I don’t have enough savings to reopen the bakery. It’s too expensive to start from scratch.”

Your son smiles: “that’s the free market, Pa. Don’t you know what’s good for you?”

[TripK]

The lesson of the story: Don’t let you children go to Harvard.

[Don't look at me!]

You guys don’t get it. He’s a young gay man. Of course he’s going to get good press coverage. If he was black and Muslim , he would be on television 24/7.

[Dillinger]

Tony hardest.

[DesigNate]

Ewww

[Kevin Smith]

So that solves number 2, but per number 1 we are still at the brink of death, are we not?

[mad.casual]

“Tariffs aren’t going to get China to change its economic model or its regional security strategy,” said Buttigieg.

WTHF? *Why* are we paying attention to this man. He can’t even get South Bend to change it’s economic model or regional security strategy and he’s in charge there!

[damikesc]

But working with apartheid South Africa was horrible for…reasons. Since economic sanctions et al won’t change behavior,

[Chuckles the Snarky Piggy]

Tariffs are taxes on Americans is disingenuous in the way that it is being represented. That a tariff is paid by the importer to the US government is true, but the implication that a 25% tariff is also a 25% increase in the price of the good is false unless China is the sole provider for a good. If Chinese industries won’t lower prices to the cover the tariffs, the importer buys from Mexico. Mexico could raise its price to take advantage of the difference, but still has to compete with Canada, Indonesia, etc.

Tariffs raise domestic prices, but only to the price at which the next set of competitors are willing to sell. China is hardest hit unless it can find another buyer.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Manufacturers have seen the writing on the wall. Some manufacturing has already shifted to other pacific rim countries because of that.

We don’t need China nearly as much as they need us. Which is good. Stifling Chinese power, whether economic or military, is a good thing. They are not our friend.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Yeah, but the commies, AKA The Democratic Party don’t like him.

[John]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/21/ice-says-pg-county-released-illegal-immigrant-murd/

The libertarian moment is here. These kids were dreamers. Validictorians. Two weeks ago reason would have done a puff piece on these guys and the courage of the PG county police department for letting the little bastards out on bail.

This might be the reasonist story ever. Two lovable scamps who came across the border looking for a new life and who were then let out of jail over the objection of ICE and without any bail after being charged with attempted murder.

[John]

Prosecutors say the teens, Josue Rafael Fuentes-Ponce, 16, and Joel Ernesto Escobar, 17 — suspected of being MS-13 gang members — feared they would be ratted out for an April robbery, so they and an accomplice snuffed out a 14-year-old suspected snitch. They made her strip before beating her with a baseball bat and chopping her with a machete.

Only a racist Nazi wouldn’t want these two “minors” in the country.

[awildseaking]

It sickens me how the open borders types consider these kinds of deaths to be acceptable losses. They’re literally traitors who put the welfare of some Americans (and foreigners) above the lives of other Americans. Nobody gives a fuck if illegals commit crimes at a lower rate than our native born population (and let’s be real, remove blacks and hispanics and the comparison is moot). If they commit even one crime, that’s blood on the hands of people who permit their trespass. They aren’t supposed to be here with the ability to commit a crime in the first place.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Your comment makes me think of posters like Pedo Jeffy, and Chip. With their nonsensical platitudes about open borders no matter what.

[Juice]

Obviously they should remain in the country if they were found guilty of murder. You wouldn’t want them to be set free anywhere in the world, much less in a country that’s unaware that they’re convicted murderers.

[AER1972]

Isn’t it possible these kids could grow up and produce the next version of the Iphone? or develop the new uber app? Probably not if we are lucky they will kill Bill Weld on his way to a retirement home to discuss his 2020 Presidential bid. Then perhaps the Reason staff will wake up and decide that MS13 is something we need to get rid of.

[damikesc]

John, sounds like they committed the murders that Americans would not commit. We should thank them.

/sarc.

[Chuckles the Snarky Piggy]

For example, on Thursday he argued that bigger government can help freedom by limiting bad outcomes created by the marketplace—like the credit card companies he accused of staking the deck against low-income Americans through mandatory arbitration clauses.

Nobody needs a credit card, and low-income Americans who can’t advocate for themselves in front of arbiter definitely shouldn’t have one. Does this really need to be pointed out? Do the Democrats not realize they are the embodiment of Ayn Rand villians?

If you were assigned to a job and prohibited from leaving it, it would restrain the freedom of your career. But it would give you freedom from the fear of unemployment. Whenever a new compulsion is forced upon us, we automatically gain a new freedom. The two are inseparable. Only by accepting total compulsion can we achieve total freedom. – Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead

[John]

With freedom comes responsibility. If you don’t want to accept the responsibility, you can’t have the freedom. The person who assumes the responsibility for you has the freedom. You are just their ward.

[DesigNate]

No, they think she was a hack writer (not a huge fan of her style to be honest) and a hypocrite so they immediately disparage all libertarians as being her ardent followers.

They simply don’t have enough self awareness to realize they are the bad guys in every dystopian novel written by ex-soviets.

[Moderation4ever]

Pete Buttigieg and his generation have always lived in a global world. President Trump talks about a time following WWII when the US dominated the world economy. Hopefully the US economy will remain strong. We can not however think we are ever going back to the ways things were. Things move forward and China and other pacific rim counties are not going to return to 3rd world status for us. Pete is the future, he sees that we need to work together and free trade is part of that future.

[John]

Pete is an idiot. Beyond that, not buying cheap shit from China is not telling China they must return to third world status much less telling anyone else they should.

You don’t really seem to understand how this works.

[Agammamon]

Its not ‘not buying cheap shit from China’.

Its being told you won’t buy cheap shit from China or men with guns will come by and shoot you.

[John]

You can buy all of the cheap shit you want. You just have to pay the taxes on it. You are confusing an embargo with a tarriff. Beyond that, if your ability to do your part to fund China’s gulag system, espionage , and police state is the hill you want to die on, how very libertarian of you.

[Moderation4ever]

Pete Buttigieg is one of the smarted people running for the presidency. Like it or not.

We are buying more than cheap shit from China and avoiding Chinese made products is not easy. See “A Year Without “Made in China”: One Family’s True Life Adventure in the Global Economy”
by Sara Bongiorni.

We live in a global economy and the rest of the world will not be bullied any more. We saw this in the 1970 with the formation of OPEC and the end of cheap oil. We can work with the world or they will work without us.

[retiredfire]

Mayor Peter-puffer Ballgag is a leftist.
That takes away any claim of him being smart.
Book learning doesn’t make one smart, nor does being multilingual.

[AER1972]

Thank you again and I wonder where does this love of this Marxist self entitled brat come from. He is the son of an educated commie who co-founded the International Gramsci Society http://www.internationalgramscisociety.org/ Check it out they have an Obit to Mayor Pete’s dad. This kid was bathed from birth in a Marxist gravy. I even wonder why he bothered to serve in the military intel. He is creepy and so is his family background.

[Agammamon]

Everybody would lift ‘counter-productive’ tariffs – even Trump.

Every one of them would also claim that the tariffs *they* want aren’t, by definition, counterproductive.

So we’re right back at the status quo Buttgig.

[John]

But Mayor Buttgig’s tarriffs would benefit his cronies and allow him and those like him to feel smug. And that is what is important.

[Agammamon]

Now John, apply that to everyone else that is leveraging tariffs.

[John]

The fact that the first gay guy to run for President is named Buttgig is pretty strong proof God has a sense of humor.

[Rockabilly]

“Tariffs are taxes on Americans—and we talk as if that’s not the case; we forget that Americans are paying them,” says Pete Buttigieg

—-

He agrees that taxes are bad. With that in mind, the IRS should be abolished along with 95% of the federal government.

Libertarian Moment!!

[retiredfire]

He doesn’t like temporary taxes on Chinese goods, to try to get them to come to a free trade arrangement, but has four different permanent taxes he wants to impose, just to implement some socialist policies on the U.S. that will accomplish no future benefit, like the Trump tariffs will.
Yeah, that’s smart.

[Uncle Jay]

What?
A liberal wanting to raise taxes?
Who would’ve thought that?

[awildseaking]

For the nth time, the increased cost of foreign goods from tariffs can be offset by tax relief and increased production by American firms, which leads to increased consumption by certain segments of Americans. Tariffs aren’t as black and white as intro to micro and Paul Krugman suggest.

[loveconstitution1789]

The Founders ran the entire federal government off tariffs for decades. Federal taxes were nil.

Effectively a super low sales tax. This would save Americans a bundle in overall tax liability and the federal gov ould be a shell of its current bloated self.

[Agammamon]

So, to fight government meddling in the market you propose for the government to meddle more?

[Colossal Douchebag]

He’s a politician making a promise on the campaign trail, so… that’s good enough for me. Where do I vote?

[buybuydandavis]

Income taxes and payroll taxes are also taxes on Americans.

Which is better to tax? Purchase of foreign goods, or domestic production of goods?

I’m with Adam Smith on that one:
“It will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign industry for the encouragement of domestic industry, when some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of the former. This would not give the monopoly of the borne market to domestic industry, nor turn towards a particular employment a greater share of the stock and labour of the country, than what would naturally go to it. It would only hinder any part of what would naturally go to it from being turned away by the tax into a less natural direction, and would leave the competition between foreign and domestic industry, after the tax, as nearly as possible upon the same footing as before it.”

[Nardz]

Reason’s position on everything involving foreign relations is for Americans to just bend over and take it.*
No surprise they’re fans of Buttigieg.

*except when the issue is needless antagonism toward Russia, in which case we shouldn’t even consider the possibility of war (otherwise or nuclear), because Russia isn’t global socialist enough for Reason’s taste

[loveconstitution1789]

Reason never brings up all the trade restrictions pre-Trump.

These trade restrictions costs blow their stupid posititoons out of the water evry time.

[damikesc]

Wages are going up, for the first time in a long time. For the first time, really, since globalization and open trade became the de facto policy of the USA.

While causation and correlation aren’t the same thing, it doesn’t seem that global free trade was working out anywhere near as well as its advocates always assumed it would.

[Harvard]

Reason really want to board the Buttplug train. The article is disingenuous. If no tariffs, how does Buttplug lever the Chinks to stop the IP theft? Does it matter?
Consider:The United States Trade Representative, which led the seven-month investigation into China’s intellectual property theft and made recommendations to the Trump administration, found that “Chinese theft of American IP currently costs between $225 billion and $600 billion annually.”

[AER1972]

God has a strong sense of humor, but Pete, of all the rather insipid pandering twits that make up the 2020 Democratic offering, really is quite possibly the most dangerous. He is intelligent enough to be calculating and deliberative. He knows that the Constitution is on shaky ground and that most of his leftist progressive socialist followers either don’t understand it or think it needs to go as it is past it’s usefulness . He has mastered progressive speak and can out think even AOC (not hard to do for most anyone with an IQ that hovers above 100). So he will say what is necessary to get elected and when that is done he then will shred the constitution and move this country into the gulags of despair. “Democratic capitalist,”(?) is neither and betrays his Marxist roots. The fact you have half wit Reason writer considering Mayor Pete (BTW Mayor of a small city ) as a sane voice it is clear that the Libertarian voices here are really jumping off the deep end. President Pete means the end of the Constitution, Free Markets and the Representative Republic. Wow this is scary and makes me happy that my life which is quickly turning in at 66 will soon be over. I really do hate to see the country I proudly served turned into a pablum of Socialist fare which resembles something like a combination of 1984 and the movie Idiocracy. I can only thank God that my Father and Brother, two highly decorated combat Vets, have already made the transition . Perhaps we can have a laugh when we hook up in a few years.

[loveconstitution1789]

Poor Boehm.

He never will admit that all the trade restrictions that Americans currently have to deal with cost Americans millions or billions each year.

Its TDS because all history started on Jan 20, 2017.

[Cyto]

“Tariffs aren’t going to get China to change its economic model or its regional security strategy,” said Buttigieg.

This is where you insert the “citation needed” meme.

It already has them negotiating hard and offering various forms of concessions. Precisely which tool does Buttigieg propose using to “get China to change its economic model or its regional security strategy”? – even though I’m not sure that’s exactly the target of the tariff tactic.

Reason has already taken the position that the way Trump should have tried to undertake these negotiations was via the use of the World Trade Organization – which could have offered up a piece of paper authorizing tariffs after some number of years litigating proposed “unfair trade practices”. So, slower and less reliable, but still using tariffs as the stick at the end of the day.

[Pete Buttigieg, Democratic Capitalist - G20 Intel]

[…] much government intervention. Tariffs, for example, cross Buttigieg’s line. Buttigieg decried President Trump’s tariffs on China at an event as both a tax on Americans and a […]

[Pete Buttigieg, Democratic Capitalist – ALibertarian.org]

[…] much government intervention. Tariffs, for example, cross Buttigieg’s line. Buttigieg decried President Trump’s tariffs on China at an event as both a tax on Americans and a […]

[Pete Buttigieg, Democratic Capitalist – Grossly Offensive]

[…] much government intervention. Tariffs, for example, cross Buttigieg’s line. Buttigieg decried President Trump’s tariffs on China at an event as both a tax on Americans and a […]