Trump changes his tune on the economy

[Ol Janx Spirit]

21. Wait; what? We were clearly told that tariffs were going to pay for childcare for all Americans; eliminate...

...income taxes entirely; pay down the national debt; and, make everyone so rich they wouldn't know what to do with all of the money.... I'm definitely not a Turnip whisperer, but I don't remember any of his supporters saying, "what he really means is Christmas is going to suck and you can only have five pencils for the school year." Those of us who are not his supporters did warn of this reality, but I guess we just aren't privy to the higher-power-ordained-and-guided brilliance of it all.... /s

Coherence has never been a strong suit of F-47, but this tariff policy is incoherent even for him. The stated goals are even at odds with each other. If the goal is to eliminate trade deficits by opening up markets to American-made products then you have to negotiate the tariffs down to very low levels to encourage that trade. But if your goal is to bring back manufacturing to the US then you have to maintain very high tariffs for a very long time in order to force Americans to only buy goods made in America which will encourage manufactures to relocate here. Of course this also means prices go up and stay up as we lose access to goods made in far less expensive manufacturing markets. If your goal is to eliminate income taxes then you need to tariff every imported product at over 200% to even match current income tax revenues--much less exceed it and do other things like pay down the debt and make childcare free. Of course, in the process you decimate any American manufacturer that sold on the global market.

I guess he is getting his guidance from that totally real economist Ron Vara.... /s