>>386621>But it’s a regressive taxYes. The best move the Trump administration could possibly make is for Congress to allow the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to expire save the parts that eliminates deductions for state income tax after $10,000, for Trump to abandon his campaign promise of eliminating income tax on tips, overtime, and social security, and for the capital gains tax to be completely eliminated and folded into the income tax. Is this viable? Not just no, but hell no. It could never happen under a Republican administration and a Republican Congress. Ever. Congress could never go along with it.
You must, as Machiavelli says, learn to accept the inconvenience of things and call the less bad good. We can’t sustain a 2 trillion dollar deficit forever. Tariffs are the only tax completely within the power of the executive branch.
> can you name a single "le negotiation" that has reduced trade barriers?Nigger the negotiations are going on
now. As we speak. That’s why there’s a 90 day pause. They are meeting with representatives of many nations
now and negotiating. What do you want me to do? Invent a Time Machine and go two months into the future? Find a leak if the ongoing negotiations? This is pointless bitching. And how is it random? You’re bitching about the tariffs and the trade war. You have correctly pointed out that the U.S. exports many services. I am pointing out that a part of the negotiations is sure to include non-tariff barriers to trade. One example that Trump brings up every time he speaks is Canada not allowing American banks to operate in Canada, even as Canadian banks can operate in the U.S. I am certain that the negotiations with Canada are going to cover this barrier to trade and others that aren’t common knowledge. Will the barrier to trade be eliminated in exchange for eliminating or reducing tariffs on Canada? I have no idea. We’re gonna find out, and we’re gonna find out soon.
As I was typing this reply, I heard that “The White House has 18 proposals for Trade Deals.”
Has there previously been some barrier to trade that was eliminated in a negotiated settlement by some pair of nations at some point in human history? I am absolutely certain there has been. Do I know any off the top of my head? No. Am I going to waste my time looking up this “””random””” topic? Absolutely not. You look up every trade deal ever made, you prove it’s never happened once, and you come back to me. The USMCA is probably the most obvious place to start.
>It’s a housing issueThe lack of increase in average wages was a well known talking point before the explosion of housing prices.
>increase the supply of lumber and drywall.If only the U.S. had a supply of trees and gypsum. There’s so much Calcium sulfate (the main ingredient in drywall) produced as a by product of burning coal for electricity that it has to be thrown away. Housing prices are a result if immigration, speculation paid for by an inflationary monetary policy, and restrictions on building houses from thousands of local government. It has little to nothing to do with trade.
>Is the goal to reduce the trade deficit or is it to reduce trade barriersEliminating barriers to U.S. exports to foreign nations will increase exports and thus reduce the trade deficit. This is self-evidently obvious.
The goal of the tariffs is to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and on shore critical industries. This will be accomplished by selective tariffs on critical industries, and negotiations that should reduce barriers to U.S. exports, as well as, I assume, probably an indefinite global tariff of 10%, or maybe higher on selective nations, combined with deregulation of industry and tax credits to pay for the reshoring of industrial production. Will this effort completely eliminate the trade deficit? Absolutely not. Will it reduce it to at least some degree. I assume it would, yes.
I get it. You hate Trump, so you impulsively say that everything that Trump does is bad. But what the hell do you want him to do? You want a continuation of the status quo? How does that benefit anyone but a narrow band of the rich? We’ve had enough of doing nothing. It’s time to
do something. And like it or not, Trump is doing something.