Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
David Hebert correctly concludes that “the simple truth is that taxes, whether on imported goods or corporate profits, raise prices and retard economic growth. If we want a prosperous America, we need to lower barriers to trade rather than erect new ones” (Letters, August 4).
It’s dismaying that many conservatives today fawn over hikes in taxes on imports with the same blind reverence with which progressives have long fawned over hikes in taxes on income and capital-gains – specifically, as levies that, allegedly, not only do nothing to discourage desirable economic activities, but, instead, miraculously fuel the economy, feed the poor, fill government coffers, and promote equality, fairness, fraternity, and the American way as nothing else can.
If these conservatives ever break out of their trance, they’ll be mortified to realize just how alike their defenses of tariffs are to progressives’ defenses of other taxes.
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
