Post by @DirtRoadPickup on Twitter/X:
Trump brought record debt, record spending, record printing, massive deficits, and now calls for free childcare, free IVF medical procedures, free whatever else he needs to offer in order to win.
On trade, he promises massive, 20%-60% tariffs across the board. Tariffs like that are central planning policies, which are a tool of the socialists. He lies and says they’re a tax on foreign nations, but that is not true – we do not have the jurisdiction to tax a foreign nation, obviously – they are a tax on the consumer and they hit the poor and middle class the hardest.
This has always been a known, widely accepted, basic fact of economics. But Trump lies and twists reality, and his party goes along.
Tariffs are worse than regular taxes, because taxes typically have to be passed and approved through the legislative process, whereas tariffs are taxes imposed by executive order – by fiat – like you’d see under a monarch.
Republicans used to respect Milton Friedman on the economy and mirrored economic policy after him. He was a strong advocate for free markets and believed that tariffs severely distort market efficiency and harm consumers.
He said tariffs inevitably lead to higher prices for consumers, reduced competition, and created numerous inefficiencies in the economy. On the other hand, he believed free trade policies promote competition, lower prices, and increase the overall well-being of society.
He often said trade barriers like tariffs are counterproductive to growth and and that economic policies should aim to minimize government intervention and allow markets to operate freely.
All of this used to be bread and butter GOP economic philosophy and was one of many reasons I aligned with the party. That’s not what the GOP stands for anymore – that GOP is dead and gone.
Under Trump, the new GOP is an economic illiterate, pushing central planning policies that sound more German than American. That ain’t for me.