Last edited Wed Apr 9, 2025, 02:02 PM - Edit history (1)
You have to be slow to miss this attempt to shift to a regressive sales tax. If the government gets the money from a tariff and it covers the loss income tax on the wealthy, then, when imported parts, services, and goods increase in price to incorporate the tariff, then the offset becomes a regressive sales tax. I maintain it is a sales tax on all goods, even if something could be 100% made in the US, since the competing offshore goods will set a higher price for everything. The higher prices will, if you follow the money, be a sales tax replacing, dollar for dollar, the income tax. That portion that is paid on the US debt, owed by everyone, and unequally used to the advantage of the rich will be a debt unequally paid by the poor. In a way, it is like a reverse EITC. Where EITC made it easy for owners to pay workers lower that a living wage and did so by subsidy of the wages to the benefit of workers, the Trump tariff benefits the owners and lowers the purchasing power of workers.
If you were patient enough to read all my gooble-d-goop, the question remains - Will businesses be eventually forced to solve the wage problem or try to sell US goods somewhere else when US citizens can no longer afford those goods.
I don't recall if directly tracked in Project 2025 but I know Heritage Foundation members have long supported a flat tax but would probably prefer a regressive tax.
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