Trump Doubles-Down to Repeal Income Tax
Donald Trump is doubling down on completely repealing the income tax, replacing it with tariffs on foreigners.
The left, who uses the income tax to suck the blood from the American people on behalf of giant corporations and pink-haired child mutilators, are popping their little heads.
Tariffs vs Income Tax
During the campaign, Trump had repeatedly mused what if we just get rid of the income tax and abolish the IRS. The left wasn’t taking him seriously because, like, politicians say all kind of stuff when they’re trying to get elected.
But now, with the election safely under his belt, Trump isn’t letting it go. In fact he’s doubling down.
In an address to a major GOP policy retreat in Florida, Trump ran through the history of the tariff, how we were much richer as a country when we funded the federal government not off the blood, sweat, and tears of the American people, but off foreigners in the form of tariffs.
Of course, that golden age ended in 1913 with the left’s victorious imposition of an income tax that was originally promised as only hitting the top 1% but today, of course, hits everybody.
Benefits of Ending the Income Tax
I’ve talked about the tariffs for income tax tradeoff, but in short if you get rid of the income tax and replace it with tariffs you’re looking at a one and a half trillion net decline in federal taxes — so you’d need Elon’s DOGE to cut spending.
And, in return, you’d massively raise incomes, raise economic growth, and lower inflation. I’ve estimated the average American household would see something like a $30,000 rise in annual income — about $2,500 per month.
About half of that would come from taxes you no longer pay, and the other half from higher economic growth since we’d no longer be taxing work or entrepreneurship.
The higher growth would be what’s lowering inflation — since inflation is money chasing goods, more goods — a bigger economy — means lower prices. That would easily offset whatever tariffs did to prices.
Moreover — and Trump’s highlighted this — an America without an income tax would be easily the most attractive country to produce on earth.
Especially paired with tariffs and regulatory cuts, which Trump is also pushing, literally every country on earth would start moving production to America.
China would be the one crying about rust belts.
Is it Possible?
During the election I was giddy about a presidential candidate merely talking about ending the income tax. Now we've got a sitting President who wants it. It's hard to overstate just how massive this is.
Having said, can it happen? With Republicans controlling all 3 branches, absolutely.
Legislatively, you just repeal the Revenue Act of 1913. Stroke of a pen, and the IRS is gone forever.
And thanks to something called reconciliation, any bill that primarily affects revenue -- which this is by definition -- only needs simply majority to pass for 10 years.
At which point I suspect the American people won't want the income tax they didn't pay for 10 years.
So you wouldn’t need a single Democrat vote to effectively repeal the income tax.
What’s Next
After generations of promising to battle for smaller government, the GOP finally has the chance to make all their promises come true.
Trump wants it. The American people want it -- Gallup says Americans think their taxes are too high vs too low by a 15 to 1 margin.
The last barrier is Republicans in Congress. Who, in theory, serve you and, for once, might give it a try. It would make American by far the strongest, most prosperous nation the world has ever seen.
And, even if you’re not American, it would force countries across the world to lower or abolish their own income tax, lest they lose their entire manufacturing base to the United States.
Trump could, in short, make the entire world economy great again, with growth rates we haven’t seen in a century.
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If Trump and the Republicans could get this done, I think it would be decades before the Democrats could recover, and have even a slim chance of ever regaining power. I'll be praying that it can actually happen.
Some points: You suggest that if there is no income tax, then companies from all over the world would want to come here to manufacture products. Probably that would happen and that would mean we would have to import fewer goods because they could be made here and then what happens to tariffs if fewer goods are being imported?
I don't think tariffs are that stable and what happens if trade wars break out? Unknown. Tariffs will be paid on imported products and who is going to foot that bill? The makers of the goods, the importers or the consumers? China isn't going to sit back and watch their export empire crumble.
If we need say $6.5 trillion for income and collect only $5 or $5.5 trillion in tariffs, where does the difference come from? I don't trust congress not to raise taxes in other areas. And no VAT tax or consumption tax either will work. I just have scary thoughts since government always fails to consider the unintended consequences that always appear when they do something.
If consumers suddenly have many thousands more a month to spend, and they do start spending it, wouldn't inflation kind of bump up as the demand for goods and services would rise and it might take a while for supply to meet the new demand. It might take years for this to balance out. Everything these days is warp-speed.
Only about half the people in the country pay income taxes. We are talking about major changes for many but at least half the country won't feel a thing. Maybe they become upset because they aren't getting anything. I don't know how that matters and for sure getting rid of 80,000 pages of gobbledygook filled tax code pages won't hurt anything.
I guess all the tax industry workers will have to find other employment. No reason a tax return shouldn't be reduced to more than a postcard or two.