. . .
Sadly, President Trump doesn’t agree. While one can hope that the inexcusable tariffs levied on solar panels and washing machines were a small bone thrown to the GOP’s Bannon wing, let’s call them what they are: a tax hike. Plain and simple. Trump called for tax cuts to boost the take home pay for the American worker, but the American worker seeks dollars solely for what they’re exchangeable for. In slapping tariffs on foreign goods, Trump is raising taxes on American workers in much the same way that they would go up if he got together with Congress and raised the tax rates on income earned.
The sole reason we work is to get what we don’t have, the dollars we have left after taxes represent our desire to import, but with a stroke of a pen Trump shrank the purchasing power of every American. Thinking about buying a Samsung washing machine? Estimates are that what used to cost $649 will now retail for $780 thanks to the Trump tax hike. Some of his most ardent defenders will say that $131 isn’t that big of a deal, but they can’t have it both ways: when Rep. Nancy Pelosi referred to the Trump tax cuts as “crumbs” for the American worker, she was pilloried for being out of touch. Ok, but if Pelosi is, then so is Trump. To steal rhetoric from Republican partisans who supported the Trump tax cuts: to most people $100 is a lot of money. So is $131.
