Give 1 reason income tax > tariff
- Thread starter sratiug
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I can't. I would much rather have higher priced goods than a forced income tax. And the foreign products aren't all that much cheaper anyway.
I don't need to buy products if I don't want to. But I am forced to have money taken from me no matter what thru the income tax. The US was built on tariff's until 1913. I have absolutely no problem with them if it meant we could eliminate the fed income tax.
Taxes should be avoidable. All taxes should be in the form of user fees. Slightly higher priced goods are a form of indirect user fee because of the tariff.
The Fair Tax would be nice. But Tariff's would rock because we would also get some American jobs back. The Fair Tax wouldn't aid in anything but replace the government spending disease with something different. If the government needs to be drunk do it in a way that brings more American jobs back.
I don't need to buy products if I don't want to. But I am forced to have money taken from me no matter what thru the income tax. The US was built on tariff's until 1913. I have absolutely no problem with them if it meant we could eliminate the fed income tax.
Taxes should be avoidable. All taxes should be in the form of user fees. Slightly higher priced goods are a form of indirect user fee because of the tariff.
The Fair Tax would be nice. But Tariff's would rock because we would also get some American jobs back. The Fair Tax wouldn't aid in anything but replace the government spending disease with something different. If the government needs to be drunk do it in a way that brings more American jobs back.
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Zippyjuan
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A weaker dollar could help jobs come back. That lowers the prices of our exports and raises the cost of imports- like a duty would but without the risk of other countries raising their duties in retaliation for our higher ones.
Income tax vs import duties? Getting paid less money but somewhat lower priced goods vs. a bit more money and much higher priced goods which means you need more money to get the same goods?
In the 2009 budget, the government collected $1.2 trilllion in income taxes and $29.1 billion in duties. To keep the revenue the same, they would have to raise duties by 41 times on items currently subject to duties. And that assumes that your imports do not decline- which they certainly would with that high of tarrifs in place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget More likely you would have to increase duties fifty fold or more. Is this a good idea?
Total US imports (including energy like oil) were $1.4 trillion in 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
If you wanted to apply a tarrif to all imports to replace the income tax, you basically need a 100% duty on all imports including oil. $70 a barrel just became $140 a barrel. Last summer's $140 would have been $280. What would that do to the price of gas?
Income tax vs import duties? Getting paid less money but somewhat lower priced goods vs. a bit more money and much higher priced goods which means you need more money to get the same goods?
In the 2009 budget, the government collected $1.2 trilllion in income taxes and $29.1 billion in duties. To keep the revenue the same, they would have to raise duties by 41 times on items currently subject to duties. And that assumes that your imports do not decline- which they certainly would with that high of tarrifs in place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget More likely you would have to increase duties fifty fold or more. Is this a good idea?
Total US imports (including energy like oil) were $1.4 trillion in 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
If you wanted to apply a tarrif to all imports to replace the income tax, you basically need a 100% duty on all imports including oil. $70 a barrel just became $140 a barrel. Last summer's $140 would have been $280. What would that do to the price of gas?
silverhandorder
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Both are bad...
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Companies involved in importing might take a hit. As it is, the real decision makers at the highest levels have plenty of loopholes to avoid income tax. You wouldn't want them to have to start over putting holes in new tariff legislation? Such a bother.
Who the hell cares? We won the trade war and became the richest nation in the world. At that point, it was ludicrous to drop tariffs. A free market in global trade was not in the best interests of the richest country in the world. We were so much richer than the rest of the world that it was literally impossible to compete with cheap labor for our jobs. Allowing the free market to function in our domestic economy was in our best interest. Allowing the free market to function in the global economy in the 1970s and 1980s? Horrible fucking idea. Why would you want to allow other nations to compete with us in manufacturing when we already had the market cornered as a nation? Not for nothing, but our government is supposed to represent our interests, not foreign ones. And beyond that, we could have literally stopped international trade altogether and allowed our economy to function in a vacuum. Foreigners needed us at that point, we didn't need them at all. Dropping America's tariffs accelerated the process of ultimately making American's poorer. Ross Perot was right, we should have maintained tariffs until other nations were willing to allow the standard of living of their workers to rise to the point at which we could actually trade with other nations.
Today, we aren't so fortunate because we've spent the past 30 years destroying the economy of America.
Dropping tariffs allowed American Businessmen to make orders of magnitude more money by firing Americans and outsourcing all of our labor. Tariffs worked for 200 years in this country. The last 30 years have been a complete disaster, despite the fact that a lot of people had 30 years of fun with this consumer driven service economy. Paying for it won't be so fun...
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TonySutton
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Everyone is forgetting the first best part of getting rid of the income tax and raising tariffs is DOWNSIZING government.
Reduce federal spending to a level that can be supported by a tariff which does not cause a trade war.
Reduce federal spending to a level that can be supported by a tariff which does not cause a trade war.
Well obviously government needs to reduce its' spending. Getting rid of the fed should be a primary goal at the moment. Auditing is the first step.
Zippyjuan
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Cutting the government income no longer slows their spending. Changing what you tax is a seperate question from how much government spends. You have to cut the spending part first- then you can get rid of or reduce taxes.
I don't think we could win a trade war these days. We have become too dependent on imports- both in terms of goods and energy. Back then, we imported goods because we had surplus income and could afford to buy more things than we produced. Now it is our reduced domestic production which is why we import more. Look at all the things you buy and see how many (or how few) were actually produced in this country. That is why we should care about a trade war. Get rid of our imports and exports and what do you have left of your economy? Things would be far worse than they are today.
That's why getting rid of the fed is so important. Then they COULDN'T spend whatever they want then. I always find it interesting that back when we were on the gold standard the government pushed so hard for war bonds from the ppl to fight WW2. The people actually had to sacrifice hard for government on a gold standard. Now they just blow their wad with endless fiat.
You cannot prove that we wouldn't have a lot more money and only slightly higher prices.
Stary Hickory
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Exactly, people saying please tax the stuff I buy rather than the things I use to trade for the same stuff I buy are kinda saying nothing at all.
Zippyjuan
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It is the Treasury which enables excess spending- they are the ones who borrow to finance the deficit through their sale of Treasury notes. Getting rid of the Fed would not change that. Nor would it force the government to balance their budgets or get rid of the debt. Selling Treasury notes is no different from selling War Bonds. They are both government borrowing.
With an amendment mandating a 10 year phaze over industry and government would have time to adjust.
Is it a good idea to have Americans pay a trillion in taxes to subsidize importers who pay nothing?
Zippyjuan
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If you replace the current level of income taxes with a tarrif, you will double the price of imports (I went over those numbers earlier). You would probably see a comprable rise in domestically produced goods too since they were no longer facing the competition from imports and all goods would be in short supply for quite a while. So prices nearly double. Get rid of the income tax- how much does your disposable income change? It does not double- probably going up may be a third (assuming you are in a 25% tax bracket- say you take home $30k- that means you were getting $40k- but you will not be getting back your social security or medicare taxes) so yeah- prices would go up by a lot more than your disposable income would.
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tmosley
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You are mistaken if you think that raising tariffs will bring back the free market in the US. It will merely plug the last airhole in the box we find ourselves in. Maybe if we killed the government first, and stopped it from using up all the air, we might have time to grow some shrubs to keep us alive. Back in the 1920's, we had a thriving, independent economy, but the very day that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was imposed, markets crashed, and we got a nice hard hundred year screwing.
In any event, ever hear of segmentation of labor? It benefits EVERYONE. Trade is not a zero sum game. Tariffs hurt everyone except the government that imposes them.
In any event, the last 30 years have been a complete disaster because we have had license to print money without any production, allowing foreigners to support us with their savings. That is a completely separate problem. If the dollar wasn't the world reserve currency, we would still be the industrial powerhouse we were in the 1920's, only moreso. Without tariffs, we could focus on production of those goods that we are best at producing, while letting foreigners make the rest of the stuff. EVERYONE would be richer.
Also, we never won a trade war. We won a war war. Everyone else's industrial capacity was shot, while ours was intact. That is the only reason we rose to the top, given the statists that were in control. That advantage lasted until 1971, and to an extent, until 1980, when the US Dollar became the pillar that held up our grossly obese federal government and our consumer economy. That pillar is about to fall, and tariffs aren't going to save us. They can only hurt us. Less so than taxes, admittedly, but the net is still wasted capacity, a poorer nation, and a poorer world.
You think taxing work is better than taxing spending?
Consider for a moment a hypothetical guy who makes $100,000. After he pays his taxes, he only takes home $75,000. After his employer pays for his health insurance and payroll tax, it costs them $200,000 to employ him. If income tax, payroll tax, and health insurance were removed from the equation, the employer could pay him $75,000 a year, and he's be just as happy. But it would only cost the employer $75,000 to keep him around, saving $125,000 a year. That $125,000 has to come from somewhere. The only place it can possibly come from is the consumer, in the form of higher prices.
So really, the income tax, payroll tax, and government-imposed health care costs are all just tariffs on domestic goods. They all get factored into the price of every good produced in America.
So we're either putting a tariff on other countries, or a tariff on ourselves. The bottom line is that the economic burden of government always falls on the shoulders of the consumers. No tax scheme will ever change that. The only thing that will ever relieve the burden is cutbacks in government spending.
So really, the income tax, payroll tax, and government-imposed health care costs are all just tariffs on domestic goods. They all get factored into the price of every good produced in America.
So we're either putting a tariff on other countries, or a tariff on ourselves. The bottom line is that the economic burden of government always falls on the shoulders of the consumers. No tax scheme will ever change that. The only thing that will ever relieve the burden is cutbacks in government spending.
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