TARIFFS. State of the Union Address, Trump again pushes the notion that the US used to have no federal income tax because tariff revenue was all that the government needed to sustain themselves. The Federal Budget in 1901 was $525 million or 3% of GDP and total debt was roughly $2 billion. Averaging in inflation, the budget would equate to $20 billion and the debt to $76 billion today. Trump’s Budget is $6 Trillion+. We are operating at 128% of GDP on debt of nearly $40 trillion. Using the 1900’s to justify Tariffs today is a ridiculous comparison that has no basis in reality.
The overextended growth of the US Government began in 1979 with Jimmy Carter’s Malaise. Since then, the federal government’s spending skyrocketed into deficit stratospheres with a brief pause between 1997 and 2000. In 1913 Woodrow Wilson introduced the Income Tax to pay for WWI. The United States has since become a War Economy.
In 2025, the US imported $3.44 Trillion in goods – further defining America’s inability to be self sufficient in anything. A 10% Tariff across the board would levy $344 billion in receipts, whereas our current allocation to the Feds for income tax is roughly $2.5 Trillion. Simple math. In order for Trump to aggregate the value of the Income Tax, Tariffs would have to be levied at 90%. This would equate to a 100% inflation cost of all imported goods. Running the risk that countries would reciprocate, the global economy would literally CRASH. A $50,000 automobile would be $100,000. Every technology apparatus would double from phones to computers, to kitchen appliances, to electricity, and beyond.
We don’t have mathematicians or economists running the White House – we have lawyers, bankers and conmen. It is no different than having a lawyer conduct surgery – their acumen is based on argue everything even when you are wrong. They would undoubtedly remove your liver for a head-cold. Trump is following those orders. TARIFFS can never replace the income tax unless we can reduce the government and its budget by 90%.
SOCIAL SECURITY: Every single year we are told that Social Security is broke and retirees will have to take a cut in their receipts. The fact that Social Security utilizes a completely different schematic to calculate inflation than government employees is only matched by the fact that government pensions are never similarly targeted for bankruptcy. How is that possible.
US TREASURY: As of 2024, the last time the government pulled a calculation out of thin air, the total pension liability at the time amounted to $3.34 Trillion – a 5.5% increase over 2023 due to – inflation. Where is that money supposed to come from? According to the US Treasury 2024 Balance Sheet; Total Assets are $5.6 Trillion on Liabilities of $45.5 Trillion. Within the Receivable section of the Balance Sheet, $2.15 Trillion is for loans, including education that will never be repaid. In addition, $1.3 trillion in Property Plant and Equipment that could generate likely 35cents on the dollar. So the $5 trillion in assets is more likely $2 Trillion. It isn’t Social Security that is in trouble – it is the entire government system. And TARIFFS will exasperate the Value of Living for all 345 million Taxpayers to the point of third world status.
To mitigate the mess, Trump is proposing a Thrift Plan of Savings for Americans. All you have to do is turn over your retirement to the US Government. The fund is managed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. It is currently managed by Democrat Lawyer and politician Mike Gerber. The five member part-time Board is required by FERSA to have “substantial experience, training, and expertise in the management of financial investments and pension benefit plans.”
Other Board members include Dana Bilyeu – a lawyer, Leona Bridges – MBA from Barclays, aka Blackrock, and Stacie Olivares – MPP Business and Government. The fifth member is ‘vacancy’.
What Trump is entertaining is for millions of hard working civilians to give their money to FERSA which will be ‘accounted for’ as a Trust but will be used as a slush fund for more government warfare funding. No one would be able to touch their money until the new retirement age of death per Ben Shapiro and Ted Cruz. Given Social Security is ‘bankrupt’ – FINRA would call this Investment FRAUD.
Yet the Trump Gala touts how strong the economy really is despite bankruptcies rising 14%, and unfettered debt. Not only is it negligent, fraudulent, and unsustainable, the ONLY way out is for government to step down, forfeit their pensions, pay back the graft, and sacrifice their individual wealth gained on the backs of taxpayer labor.
While tariffs funded 19th-century government, they were volatile, regressively taxed consumption, and raised prices. Income taxes allow for higher, more reliable revenue as the government is ‘ever expanding’. Current federal employees – roughly 9.1 million – 3 million of which are actual employees, the remaining include contract and grant employees doing the actual work on behalf of the government because lawyers don’t know how to contribute to society.
I rarely post but I desperately need to. It’s the money. Follow the money. Nothing happens without the money. The so called terrorists that we all hate do not have arms manufacturing but have money to buy. From who, US ( not USA but all of US). Here is a simple solution to knee cap the money men. Do not pay any bill on time. Any bill. Utilities, mortgage, credit card. For the first miss all you will get is a reminder. Not extra charge just a reminder. Then pay it. On your own it’s nothing. Now multiply this out by 10, 100 or 1000000 people doing this each month. Now it is significantly huge out of circulation money that can not be used. Continuously roll this over a year and you will get the bastards attention. No bullets needed.
Just a simple KIWI pecking at grubs.
And we the people are just as guilty for allowing this to continue.
Doug, I agree. Where do we begin? I read an article by Judge Napolitano regarding our nihilistic government. He has no solution either. I have no solution. It’s very sad.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/02/andrew-p-napolitano/the-price-of-perfect-nihilism/
I don’t agree that external tariffs lack benefit. If that were the case, why have so many countries elected to charge them. For many years the US has engaged in Laissez Faire which has allowed the world to rip us off. The idiots/conmen in administration after administration have sat fecklessly by or engaged in underhanded deals to their own advantage.
The income tax, which has never been legal, was not enacted to pay for WW1. That had hardly gotten underway at the time. It was to install a debt based monetary system, which the jew bankers had plagued administrations previously which included assassinations and attempted assassinations of presidents. These same jews were given control of procurement during the war from underwear to artillery and ripped us off royally thus causing more debt to us. Nobody but imbeciles smiling and looking benevolently on.
We would not be needing the hard earned money of our working men and women if we got rid of all non essential agencies (most if not all), foreign aid, the CIA( malevolent and run by psychopaths), refuse to allow non supporting or deviant people into our nation, cut out 98% of social programs, scuttle Israel and refuse to engage in warfare unless our land and citizens are directly threatened. BTW, Medicare and SS are NOT social programs. It is government mandated retirement which involved only the monies forcibly extracted from employees and their employers. Absolutely no government funds, but the government felt comfortable stealing from it and that is why it is insolvent.
Taxation does not benefit the taxpayer. Everybody and everything but. It is spent/stolen to hurt the taxpayer, take away his rights, rob him/her of their productivity and wealth. Think about that before you send another dollar.
This country has spent like a drunken sailor for decades and here we are. Time to give up anything counter productive. Time for serious belt tightening. Government’s purpose is to defend the nation against foreign invasion (failed), keep the infrastructure up to date and safe (failed), provide policing for criminals to protect citizens from harm, especially children (failed), provide diplomatic relations to other countries (???), regulate big business (failed), and leave small business alone(failed). No more welfare queens or drug daddies. No more criminal 9 yo children.
We will need more state hospitals for the insane. They shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets endangering or accosting others. This includes drug addicts and alcoholics, the criminally insane and transgenders too.
Fix the BS and a lot of other solutions might come along. Otherwise the prognosis is horrid. So many spoiled lazy people, so much hard work ahead.
SAME SCENARIO:In Germany, as within the European Union (EU) generally, import tariffs are not absorbed by the government; rather, they are primarily paid by importing businesses and subsequently passed on to consumers (civilians) in the form of higher prices.
Yes, we are in deep debt, financial chaos. Where do we begin? What do we need to attend to first?
The House appears set to sink legislation designed to curb President Trump’s use of military force in Iran, potentially lending the administration a boost as it escalates its threats against Tehran. War is not the answer.
Just reported, Cuban Coastguard kills 4 Americans in. Florida registered boat that entered Cuban waters. Six more were injured. Now what?
Vance just cut Medicaid to Minnesota. There are people who NEED Medicare to survive.
I decided to watch the State of the Union. No solutions.
My God, it gets worse by the hour.
The only good news that really wasn’t
reported was that thanks to Mike Huccabees’ saying Israel has a right to the whole Middle East 14 Arab and Muslem nations have revolked US flow over and staging areas that would be used to attack Iran.
Tariffs have always been a political scam in the US. The Morrell tariff was a major cause of the war between the states. The tariff woud be paid by the South to finance capital improvements and corporate welfare for Northern businesses. Lincoln said the Southern States were welcome to leave as long as they paid the tariff. The scam is no longer sectional but the beneficiaries are still the same.