Trump Is Raising Your Taxes Tomorrow
Tariffs kick in, the markets tank, and the next thing you know, we're in a recession. Maybe even a depression.
As I write this, I’m enjoying the last days before the Trump Tax Hike goes into effect.
I’m not in the market for a new car, but I am in the market for a new wooden fence. The price jumped 141 percent from September of last year to March of this year, entirely attributable to anticipation of the tariffs on lumber purchased from Canada.
New car prices will leap, too. I wonder whether the purpose of the tariffs on auto parts and steel from Canada and Mexico are intended to make Teslas look like a bargain. More likely people will just be priced out of getting a car at all, causing the industry to slump and ultimately collapse. While Trump harumphs about not “caring less about foreign car prices skyrocketing, the rest of us are wondering how long our older cars will last. (We have a 2016 Prius which we’re planning to keep as our forever car right now). People will overspend and finance their cars for the price of monthly rent, and ultimately face repossession. There are so many ways this is bad.
Tariffs here, tariffs there, and it all adds up to a $1.4 trillion tax increase on American consumers, though Trump and his minions brag that they will raise taxes to the tune of $6 trillion, which would be the largest tax hike in American history.
This, from the party that claims to want to cut taxes. Only for billionaires, of course. Trump (and whackjob Peter Navarro) think that if they raise enough money for tariffs, they can eliminate the income tax altogether, causing ordinary people to pay what amounts to a 25-50 percent sales tax.
Let’s get real: There is no way all of the products we consume in this country can be made here. Like it or not, one of two things will happen. GDP will continue to shrink as it has this past quarter from a projection of 4 percent to negative .4 percent, causing a deep recession. That’s the best case scenario. It’s more likely that it will turn into the next Great Depression, just like it did in the 1920s and 1930s.
Repeat after me: Tariffs are a tax. Tariffs are a tax. TARIFFS ARE A TAX.
Billionaires can afford to pay the tax on whatever they want. Ordinary people can’t. Wages won’t go up. Only taxes will.
Last week, Republican Representative Don Bacon (R-NE) sheepishly said that maybe Congress shouldn’t have given away their power to impose tariffs to the executive branch, and maybe they should reclaim it. YA THINK?? The problem now is that Republicans are cowards who quake at the prospect of denying the dictator his candy, much less his tariffs. Bacon is one of the few who has spoken out on this topic, and he will probably not survive the midterms.
At any rate, I’m expecting my fence to be even more expensive, even though the fence guy loaded up on lumber before the tariffs hit. And that’s probably the last thing we’ll buy here for a long time.
We had a progressive tax system. Now it will be regressive, hurting the people the most who can afford it the least.
Heckuva job, Trumpy.
One last thing
There were nationwide #TeslaTakedown protests last Saturday. I attended the one in Camarillo along with 400 or so of my fellow protesters.
For the first time, Trumpers felt called to counterprotest. Or maybe they were paid, we’re not sure. At any rate, 10 or so showed up with their big flags and monster trucks festooned with more flags than anyone who isn’t a cult member should have. One guy drove around the block in a big black Jeep with a loudspeaker. He’d get on his radio and tell us how stupid we are while driving with a “Fuck Your Feelings” flag waving from his sunroof.
As if these protests are about some hurt feelings.
Another guy had a Lexus with flags off the back, and he’d just lean on his horn all the way across the hundreds of us peacefully standing with signs. (He got a ticket at the end of the protest for being a noise nuisance) 4 or 5 others walked in the bike lane with giant flags, intending to block others from seeing us while blasting “YMCA” and “Proud to be an American” from their boom box.
Like I said, about 10 altogether. One guy left an hour in because he said he was only being paid for an hour. They always do what they accuse us of doing, after all.
The remarkable part of this was how utterly ineffective they were. They were the lawbreakers with their horns and incursion into traffic lanes. We were peaceful, shouting, “Hey hey ho ho Musk and Trump have got to go” as often as our voices would allow. No one confronted them. There was no need, because they were just sort of extra noise. If anything, they drew more attention to US than themselves.
It was heartening to see them pack up and go home realizing they’d wasted 2 hours of their lives for no particular reason at all. Unless of course, there was a paycheck involved. Who knows?