On the campaign trail, Trump has made various proposals to increase tariffs (i.e., taxes on imports) beyond what he did in his first term (which included increased tariffs on washing machines, solar panels, steel, aluminum, and some 70 percent of products coming from China). He has called for a 10 percent or 20 percent across the board tariff on products coming into the U.S. from around the globe; at least a 60 percent tariff on products from China; and putting an end to “permanent normal trade relations” with China.
By the way, the Tax Foundation has estimated: “Former President Donald Trump’s proposals to impose a universal tariff of 20 percent and an additional tariff on Chinese imports of at least 60 percent would spike the average tariff rate on all imports to highs not seen since the Great Depression.”
Meanwhile, Harris appears set to follow the trade agenda put out by the Biden-Harris administration. That includes not just maintaining but expanding the Trump tariffs on goods from China, but shifting trade agreements away from free trade, that is, lowering government costs and barriers, and to accords emphasizing the imposition of U.S. regulations, such as on the labor and environmental fronts, on other nations.
So, the Biden-Harris administration has turned trade agreements on their heads by using them to increase governmental burdens.
Sheldon Richman distinguishes full liberalism from shrunken liberalism.
Art Carden asks: “When should the government intervene?” A slice:
To this end, a presentation from the philosopher Jason Brennan inspired a paper I’m contributing to a symposium in the Journal of Private Enterprise on the contributions of my late friend and Liberty Fund contributor Steven G. Horwitz. Brennan and his coauthor Christopher Freiman explained how all the arguments for regulating consumer choices apply equally to political choices. Sure, we’re irrational and weak-willed at the supermarket. The problem is worse in the voting booth because our incentives are even worse.
One of the big misleading comments is his implication that the financial crisis was caused by deregulation. Economist Norbert Michel did a good job of taking this apart in a Heritage Foundation report in 2016. It’s titled “The Myth of Financial Market Deregulation,” April 28, 2016.
Joe Lancaster rightly criticizes Trump’s pandering to the automobile industry.
In the wake of devastating storms, the least popular argument is nevertheless an important one. We wouldn’t be asking of people in storm-prone areas anything not asked of every other American. Insurance markets exist—indeed, all markets exist in a sense—to inform people of the cost of their choices so they can make better ones.
Hardly a point emphasized by climate obsessives, today’s rising storm damage is due mainly to more people putting up more expensive and elaborate structures in places where destructive weather is a predictable hazard.
They do so not least because of the availability of federal rebuilding money, including federal flood insurance that is underpriced and subsidized by taxpayers who don’t benefit from beachfront charms.
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“We call weather-related catastrophes ‘natural disasters,’” observed a 2016 Stanford Law Review study, but the losses are often due to “questionable government policies.”
Fiona Hartigan does a deep dive into the recent history of U.S. immigration policy.
Arnold Kling eloquently champions the freedom to dissent.
The easiest way to never spread ‘misinformation’ is to echo whatever the bureaucracy says and never stray, even when it is badly mistaken.
