Trump is intending to turn the tariffs into a sales tax to replace the income tax. This place a monumental amount of the tax load on poor and middle class Americans. The tariffs do not show up on your receipts or your tax return, but it is a huge economic burden nonetheless. If the republicans manage to make a case for getting rid of the income tax, it will be very difficult to reestablish it.

We cannot allow republicans to control the narrative on this. We need to stop talking about tariffs and taxes like they’re two separate things. TARIFFS = TAXES. Repeat this over and over again on all media platforms.

Originally Posted By u/BeneficialNatural610 At 2025-04-27 02:04:23 PM | Source

  • pivot_root@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    The fact that he used the phrase External Revenue Service tells me he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

    I would be careful with thinking this. He doesn’t understand or care, but the Heritage Foundation thinktank pulling the strings certainly does.

    A large number of Americans don’t understand it either, and they think it’s the exporter (the other country) who is paying the tariffs. Calling it “External Revenue Service” seems like a deliberate choice to reinforce that misinformed narrative that tariffs aren’t a tax.

    • shawn1122@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      Its certainly a thoughtfully constructed phrase to appeal to a type of greed and entitlement.

      I don’t doubt that the heritage foundation has a plan but they’re essentially engaging in a gambit and hoping the rest of the world will blunder. There’s no real precedent here to go off of. I personally don’t think the US has ‘the cards’ to come out on top. I have a feeling that Trump is going to end up backtracking and facing legal challenges to the point that more moderate republicans will start to turn away. In the end, the overton window will have shifted which may likely be the long term goal.

      We havent even seen widespread price increases yet. If the tariffs result in a decline in the US dollar, oil prices will go up and so will the price of gas. I don’t see that going over well. He’s not going to be able to increase domestic supply fast enough to soften that impact.

      There’s still a ton of room and time for him to lose public support here. The less support he has, the harder it will be for him to make the substantial moves he has in the first few months here.

      Most of the rest of the world is looking at how to bolster their economies and defense to the exclusion of the US. That will ultimately be Trump’s lasting legacy, in my view.