Is a Protective Tariff a Good or a Bad Idea?
When a country imposes a protective tariff on imported goods, the country that is importing the goods raises the taxes on goods imported into their country. Protective tariffs end up hurting the consumers in both countries.
Protective tariffs protect domestic producers from foreign competition and raise revenue for the Federal government.
How do the people in California benefit from the government spending money on infrastructure improvements in Florida? This is an example of welfare that benefits some of the people at the expense of others. The Constitution only authorizes General Welfare, but delegating money to specific states or individuals is unconstitutional.
Virtually all of the money that is borrowed to fund the federal government is spent on programs and projects that are unconstitutional. If we only allowed Congress to spend money on providing for our common defense, promoting justice and providing for the General Welfare, we could eliminate the need for 90% of all taxes.
Alexander Hamilton was the Father of Protective Tariffs in the United States. Protective Tariffs and the Income Tax provide the fuel to redistribute the wealth of the people into the pockets of the Wall Street bankers and corporations.
Replies
What does Stossel know?
If every other country requires America to pay tariffs, then,,..,...duh. Payback is here, folks.
Perhaps we should stop doing business with countries that require us to pay tariffs.
Its called nationalism. Every country should protect its own economy and therefore its citizens. It would make sense that tariffs would be lowest between countries whose exchange of trade is nearest to equal.
Our problem has not been nationalism. Its been corporatism. We've allowed corporations to dictate our trading policies. They move their operations to slave labor countries where they can maximize profits.
I recall wondering back when NAFTA was being implemented, "just who are they going to sell all those cheap and cheaply made products to once all the jobs are gone here?". What most failed to see was that the corporations are intending to flood our home market with cheap immigrant labor thereby driving down labor costs here. When it approaches foreign slave labor costs they can move their operations back to America. Who's going to buy all those products when the population is struggling to exist on slave wages? That sounds rather short sighted but maximizing profits today is the driving force of the corporate world.
I think raising tariffs is a much needed antidote for corporate greed. It certainly makes moving jobs offshore a much less desirable prospect.
If we only puchased raw materials we need from foreign countries and produced virtually everything at home, we would not have to purchase finished goods from other countries. Buying domestically produced goods would be good for our economy.
I see tariffs as a means of correcting the greedy tactics of big business who move offshore to take advantage of slave labor wages. Buying goods made in China and other countries with extremely low wage scales makes huge profits for corporations selling goods back to Americans. Usually these goods are, not only made for much lower costs, but are, most often, made sub-standardly.
Raising tariffs on foreign goods sounds like a good start to bringing jobs back home. When big business gets the message that their scheme to make products cheaply and poorly and then foist those products on the American public at obscene prices gets foiled by high tariffs, they may re-think their greed driven positions.
I completely agree. I remember before Nixon opened up the flood gates to China's crap. We had competition, quality, Mom and Pop stores, local buying, local eateries. Now we have limits on items, colors of things even such as toilets, watercolor digital papers, things you never would know about.
My Mother was a chemist for Customs. She analyzed shoes from China during or after Nixon.
One shoe had an inch-thick piece of lead in the sole or heel. The other shoe from another analysis had filthy rags in it. They were cleaning out the garbage and dumping it into our products.
The lead being in the sole or heel of the shoe meant that China was actively poisoning Americans, as lead is absorbed through dilute acid, which perspiration is. Feet sweat. Whoever wore those shoes, was absorbing lead into their feet and thus, into their body. Her supervison, being a PC early junkie, hid the final analysis comments on the back pages of those two analysis, and basically, covered it up as much as possible.
Now, we are so slack that no one pays any attention that China is buying up hotel chains in this country. Why?
The real concern should be that foreign governments and corporations are buying up our infrastructure such as highways, etc. They are starting to turn many of them into toll roads whereby Americans are forced to pay tolls to travel on roads constructed on public RIGHT-OF-WAYS.
The term 'right-of-way' implies that the people have a right to travel thereon, not as a pay as you go, but as a right guaranteed by the Constitutions. This is an unencumbered right to travel without fees, licenses, or other encumbrances. As most on here are aware, the right to travel freely is not the same as the privilege of driving on the highways, a commercial activity that's governable.
Good points. I just drove to and from Chicago from Dayton a couple of weeks ago.
On the I-90, a toll road that has always been a toll road, there was one toll booth immediately after another, and the price increased at each one. Most likely, to help cover the out-of-control demo spending of the demo Gov.
And yes, we should be free to travel as we please without lining pockets, since we paid for it anyway.
While it is true that with protective tariffs the cost of imported goods would be higher and would be passed on to he consumer, but the producers of goods would sell more products manufactured in the United States which would have a very positive effect of employment and the economy.