We can see that all the collusion amongst media outlets and other Democrats to scare the public over President Trump’s economic policies, specifically tariffs, is working: polls on consumer confidence and inflation show that the public now believes Trump’s tariffs will bring very high inflation.
Somehow, when inflation actually skyrocketed during Biden’s time in office, the public never got that worried…because the WSJ and others didn’t spend every day pushing economic fears. Instead, legacy media ran cover for Biden’s policies.
Here are a few numbers to put the tariffs into perspective:
The total U.S. economy, rounded up, is around $30 trillion per year. We are told that consumer spending essentially makes up 70% of the economy, which is roughly $21 trillion per year.
So if Trump puts $210 billion worth of tariffs on cars and other things, and if companies passed on 100% of those, which they won’t, that would cause an increase in costs of only 1%. So the maximum increase in costs should be less than that. And remember, Trump is working to reduce oil prices, border crossings, government spending, and regulations—all of which should reduce the overall inflation effect to near-zero.
Wouldn’t it be worth it to spend a few hundred billion to bring trillions in manufacturing to the U.S.?
Wouldn’t it be smart to build and produce our own goods, instead of relying on China and others for so many things? Didn’t we learn anything from COVID?
Here is an article where the WSJ calls the tariffs on cars a giant tax: “Trump’s Giant New Car and Truck Tax”.
For one thing, only around 5% of people, at most, buy a new car every year, and a much smaller percentage buy a foreign vehicle—so it is only a cost increase for those who choose to buy a vehicle. It is not like general inflation that we experienced during Biden’s years.
I don’t recall seeing an editorial from the WSJ reporting about how Biden’s policies forced car companies to spend massive amounts of money to develop and sell money-losing electric vehicles? The paper never called that a massive “new car and truck tax” even though the prices of all cars increased substantially because of those policies.
I don’t recall the WSJ or anyone else calling Biden’s policies to destroy the oil industry, which caused crude oil prices to double, a giant gas and diesel fuel tax…even though that is what it was. And it affected everyone, especially the poor and middle classes. People didn’t have a choice to avoid the cost.
I don’t recall seeing the WSJ calling Biden’s open border a giant tax on all of us, even though we were forced to spend hundreds of billion every year.
I don’t recall the WSJ calling Biden’s student loan giveaway, dumping the bill on us, a giant tax—even though it was, not only for this generation by future ones as well.
And, I don’t recall the WSJ calling the federal government’s increased spending, by over 50% over the last five years, a tax, even though it obviously is.
Isn’t charging a few hundred billion each year to encourage companies to build more products in the U.S. much smarter than continually increasing federal spending on bureaucrats who produce no products but continually make it harder for companies to produce with massive new regulations?
Image: Public domain.