Once more the Grand Old Party has sold out to the Flim-Flam man and is now trying to sell to the American public its cure-all snake-oil, commonly known as tariffs. I have heard many many explanations as to why they, the GOP, would do this and I would like to add my two cents worth. It is all based on looking on who would benefit the most from tariffs.
I will not bother with listing all of the current most popular candidates, you can look them up yourself. I would like to add a group that is hardly ever mentioned, the 1% (One Percenters). What they would like to see is the end of the Income Tax and the Capital Gains Tax, to be replaced by tariffs. Back to the good old days of the Gilded Age when being poor was a sign of being lazy. When being wealthy was a sign of being blessed by God and you got to do what ever you wanted.
Why do I say this? Because before 1913 and the introduction of the Income Tax most of the money the Federal government collected was thru tariffs. The problem was that most of the tariffs fell on the lower 50% of the tax payers. And the Tariffs were not bringing in that much money as the poor either bought locally or did without. Don’t believe me? Go read some of the economic history of the “Progressive Era”.
Look at what the wealthiest man in the world is doing to the current governmental infrastructure in the name of rooting out “Corruption and Inefficiency” and then try to find any hard numbers form third parities. Just consider what can happen if and when they succeed in tearing up Social Security, Medicare, FDIC and the SEC. Just consider this one little fact, the top 10 wealthiest people can loose 90% of their total wealth and still be billionaires. Now just think where you’d be if you had only 10% of you total worth. Now think where you will be if your debt didn’t change at all. A now add in that bankruptcy was not an option to get rid of the dept? An when your bank/savings and loan closes it’s doors and you can’t access your account because the FDIC no longer issuers your deposit? Or how about your 4O1k? It now is worth only 10% of what is did on January 20th?
Do you really think the One Percenters are going to feel your pain? Do you think they will even be anywhere the American people can tell them about it? I think Not.