Fox Business host Charles Payne and contributor Steve Forbes did their best to soft-peddle the damage Trump’s cringeworthy plan of tariffs would have to the US economy but still came up short.
Payne, subbing for Neil Cavuto, went back to a US history that is no longer relevant to us to prop up the idea of tariffs.
PAYNE: How does President Trump plan to convince his fellow Republicans that this is the right way to go?
FORBES: Well, there’s two issues here, Charles.
One is how do we make his landmark 2017 tax bill permanent, because as you know, if no action is taken this year, a lot of that tax bill expires and the average family would pay about $2,500 more in taxes and it would hurt our businesses.
This is what the 2%ers and corporations want more than life itself. Letting these tax cuts expire won’t hurt anybody. It makes it harder for the rich to fiddle with their tax returns.
Now comes the rub. This is where their clucking begins.
FORBES: And then, of course, there’s the secondary issue about the tariffs that Trump has been talking about. Now, maybe, I’m just thinking out loud here, Charles, and I’ve talked to some of the top economic advisors that have worked with me in the Trump campaign, we could maybe mix these two and use tariffs as a way to pay for some of these tax cuts.
In other words, you know, as Trump has said, lower taxes on things that are made here in the United States, which is what we did with that tax bill, and maybe raise taxes on things that are coming in from China.
That could work.
It could pay for it.
Thinking out loud means Forbes is f**king clueless.
You can’t mix oil and water, and he knows it. Lowering taxes helps the rich and big business, but strangles the government. Implementing tariffs raises prices on products which hurts most of America.
FORBES: But this is all going to have to go, I don’t want to get too complicated here, but this is going to have to go through what we call reconciliation process, which allows bills to be passed with 51 votes in the Senate.
And Charles, guess what? The Republicans have 53 in the Senate, so they could do that.
It’s not a good idea so Republicans will pass it with reconciliation. Gotcha.
Forbes and Payne were finally forced to admit tariffs raise the cost of goods and services and act in their minds like a regressive tax down the scale.
PAYNE: But again, getting back to the argument, though, because you and I know a lot of real old school conservative orthodoxy when it comes to economics is that tariffs are a tax.
And so, yeah, on one hand, we know that lowering taxes, we’re both pro-growth, we know that more money that circulates in the economy, the better it is, and not offset anything.
We know government will probably end up taking more revenue in terms of lower taxes. (Another lie)
But the part that you may have trouble with, with some Republicans, is saying, OK, how do you exactly implement these higher tariffs without them hurting the American public?
Lowering taxes has not increased revenues to the federal government. Even Payne admitted the Trump tax cuts did not do this and he was angry that his peers used the savings in stock buy backs instead of it trickling down to the peasants.
Forbes then commented that he’s ‘more of a tariff guy’. WTF does that mean? You are either for them or against them.
FORBES: And by the way, I’m not a big tariff guy, as you know, Charles, I mean, I love most of what Trump wants to do. I’m more of a tariff guy than you are.
PAYNE: I know you are.
FORBES: And all I’m saying is, if these tariffs are done in a strategic way where there is a slight harm from raising taxes on imported goods, but if you’re actually cutting tax on things that are made here in Michigan and Ohio and California and these other states, that might be a good thing overall for the economy.
Where’s the strategy? If Trump and his economy advisors like Forbes had one he would say it. It’s the same shite as a republican health care plan.
These two knuckleheads couldn’t come up with the actual rationale for why tariffs would benefit the American people and the US economy. Because they won’t.
