In an excellent column about how incredibly dumb Trump is about tariffs, Michael Tomasky makes this excellent point. Trump has said many times that he thinks we can replace the income tax with tariffs, you know, like it was before 1913. But it’s not just about the insanity of that, he’s also, as usual, completely making up numbers:
Read this, from CBS.com: “In a recent news conference, White House staff secretary Will Sharf estimated that Mr. Trump’s 25 percent tariff on vehicles and auto parts imported into the U.S. could raise ‘roughly $100 billion in new revenue.’ At the same news conference, Mr. Trump claimed moments later ‘anywhere from $600 billion to $1 trillion will be taken in over the relatively short-term period, meaning a year from now.’”
The aide says $100 billion. Trump casually ups it to a trillion. Billion, trillion; who knows. Well, even I know: A trillion is a thousand billions. That’s like the difference between 10 and 10,000. Pretty vast, in other words. But Trump knows that nobody really thinks about the difference between a billion and a trillion, so just say a trillion.
Finally, before I let you go: How much do tariffs bring in now? Around $80 billion. Sounds like a lot, and it is. But take a guess as to how much total revenue the federal government takes in, from (1) income taxes, which is half of all revenue, (2) payroll taxes, (3) excise taxes, and (4) corporate taxes.It’s around $4.7 trillion. Know what percentage of $4.7 trillion $80 billion is? About 1.7 percent. That’s how much of our current federal revenue comes from tariffs.
Going from 1.7 percent to 100 percent sounds, um, like something that will cause vast, unknowable dislocations; and more to the point, like the fantasy of a stupid man who’s never read a book and has no effing idea what he’s talking about.
I guess it’s tiresome and futile to keep saying this but I will anyway. How in the hell did this country get so stupid that we would elect this imbecile twice? I will never be able to wrap my mind around it.