Eric Boehm details some of the projected costs of Trump’s proposed tariffs. Two slices:
Whether passed through Congress or enacted with the stroke of a presidential pen, higher tariffs will ultimately fall on American consumers. A new report this week by the National Retail Federation, a trade association that represents grocers, department stores, and online sellers, estimates that Trump’s proposed tariffs would “reduce American consumers’ spending power by $46 billion to $78 billion every year the tariffs are in place.”
Those estimates depend on many variables that won’t be known for sure until an executive order or tariff legislation is made public, of course. But there is broad agreement among economists that higher tariffs will make Americans poorer—the only question is by how much?
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There are a lot of moving parts here, and there’s still time for Trump to reconsider this foolish idea—or for his advisors and key figures in Congress to talk him out of it. The one thing we know for sure is that, if more tariffs are headed our way in 2025, consumers will have the least influence over the process and will end up bearing most of the cost.
Judge Glock applauds Houston’s lack of land-use zoning.
Marcos Falcone warns of “the linguistic disadvantages of liberalism.”
C.J. Ciaramella has a really good idea.
Abortion no doubt is a voting issue for many women (and men), and it seems plausible, even likely, that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization gave Democrats a boost in 2022 and even 2024. But the idea that it was going to lead to a mass change in voting behavior when the parties have been polarized over the issue since 1980 never made sense.
