Gretchen Whitmer goes to Washington with a call for bipartisanship to grow the economy

[SunSeeker]

46. Are you fucking kidding me? A 10% across the board tariff is a horrifically regressive tax that stunts trade.

Last edited Thu Apr 10, 2025, 06:17 AM - Edit history (1)

It is one thing to be strategic with tariffs and target imports that compete with products we already manufacture. But we can't grow bananas and coffee. Why tariff that? And it will take years to build factories, in the meantime all working Americans will suffer and some will lose everything. For tariffs to have any chance of working, they must be implemented gradually, with subsidization of factory building and aid to Americans who are hurt by the tariffs. None of that happened here. Trump dismantled the programs Biden signed into law under his Inflation Reduction Act to help build factories. And the tariffs were imposed arbitrarily, without industry input. That is because they weren't really about trade. Nor were they about fentanyl. Nor illegal immigration, nor any of the other false justifications Trump gave.

Project 2025 calls for eliminating the IRS and using tariffs to raise revenue instead. This turns working people into serfs, paying taxes for the rich. That is what Trump tariffs are all about. Democrats have never supported this evil policy.

What Whitmer called for in her policy speech was a “consistent national strategy,” and criticized Trump’s sweeping, roller-coaster rollout of — and subsequent retreat from — tariffs. She said she was not against tariffs “outright” and expressed understanding of Trump’s “motivation” behind deploying them. But that rightfully drew a social media rebuke from Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis. “Tariffs are bad outright because they lead to higher prices and destroy American manufacturing,” Polis, wrote on X. “Trade is inherently good because both parties emerge better off from a consensual transaction.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/disaster-gretchen-whitmers-talk-tariffs-meeting-trump-anger-fellow-dem-rcna200530

Steep across'the-board tariffs invariably invite retaliatory tariffs and hurt our overall trade. I suggest you Google "Smoot Hawley Tariff Act," a disastrously broad tariff law written by Republicans Smoot and Hawley, and signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover in 1930, that turned a recession into the Great Depression. That is what Trump's tariffs resemble.