I criticized the blatant falsehoods spewed by Donald Trump's opponents yesterday. Today, I want to poke holes in one of Trump's campaign talking points: tariffs and taxes. I tried my best to avoid posting about politics throughout October, but I think it's worth tackling a few things here at the tail end of a bizarre campaign cycle.
Trump has been a financially successful businessman. Whether he accrued his wealth morally is very much open to debate, but he has made a lot of money over the years. He was famous enough for a cameo in Home Alone II: Lost in New York (1992), and even before that, Bloom County poked fun at him by transplanting his brain. That was a weird story arc. To be fair, I didn't read it then. I discovered the collected comics in one of my parents' books some years after it was first published.
He may have a reputation for business, making deals, generating profits, and so on, but he's embarrassingly ignorant of deeper history and economics. He seems to trust his gut and follow hunches, but those are poor tools to navigate complex issues. On one hand, he seems open to surrounding himself with (slightly) better advisors this time around, but on the other, he's still an arrogant windbag who wants immediate results, and damn the consequences.
111 years ago, the scoundrel Woodrow Wilson used the very real problems of tariffs on trade and the burden they placed on businesses and consumers alike to justify his income tax scheme. It was sold with assurances it would only affect the richest 3% or so of the population, and only at a light burden for even them. No, the internet rumors of his contrition and regret are absolutely fake. He was a true believer in bureaucracy and political management of society to the end.
Now, Trump promises tariffs as a cure for the flaws of income taxation and its burdens on the working man. He has no idea what harm they did over a century in the past. Last time Trump was in office, his tax cuts (good) were accompanied by increased spending (bad) and unprecedented money supply inflation in response to COVID lockdown policies (even worse). This time around, his populist instincts are leading him to potentially suggest real cuts to government, but I really doubt that will actually happen.
In addition, we're still facing the unresolved issues of an inverted yield curve, another housing market bubble, price inflation as a ripple effect of that money supply inflation, ongoing supply chain issues, a consumer debt crisis, international military entanglements, and more. No matter what really happens, the media will report the unraveling chaos as "a consequence of Donald Trump's reckless laissez-faire policies destroying our great institutions."
To be fair to Trump, tariffs are part of the Constitution's core authorities, so if you believe in the legitimacy of the Constitution, it's at least less egregious than direct apportioned taxes on wages. However, Trump's brand of nationalistic populism is infected with shortsighted protectionism instead of a sound grasp of comparative advantage and the benefits of real free trade. Americans like to tell themselves we have a "free market economy," but nothing could be further from the truth. As of 2024, we are #25 behind countries like Denmark, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, many of which are known for burdensome welfare states that are arguably far less dysfunctional than that of the USA.
Would a Trump victory mean more economic freedom? Maybe. He at least has some experience in market-adjacent activities, unlike most candidates for any national office. However, he's also a man with a history of failures and mistakes. He's a terrible judge of character base don his political history. I'm also not convinced he's really a major shift from the political mainstream no matter how much he's painted as the outsider maverick enemy of the system. An enemy of factions within the system? Sure. A threat to its existence? Wishful thinking at best.
I can make an argument that Trump is the lesser evil, but I still believe he is deeply corrupt and evil. He is not equipped with the moral foundation or philosophical principles to navigate the problems we face. We already know the media and partisan opponents will blame him for everything beyond his control, and twist anything he accidentally does right into some kind of high crime. His inability to articulate any deeper principles behind just saying things he thinks will earn popular support is a bad sign.
Old post:
An Alternative to Trump
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