As a rule, President Donald Trump does a thorough job of claiming every conceivable extravagant achievement for his policies and then some.
But he's failed so far (I think) to boast of the amazing educational outcomes of his trade wars.
Trump's imposition of punishing tariffs (aka taxes) on foreign goods exported to the U.S., notably from China, has abruptly opened the eyes of progressive America to an essential truth about the way taxes work — particularly taxes on businesses — that liberals formerly seemed to have occasional difficulty grasping.
To wit: A New York Times news story reprinted in the Star Tribune last week described how Larry Kudlow, Trump's "chief economic adviser," had admitted "that U.S. consumers will bear a burden from the escalating trade war with China, contradicting Trump's claim that his tariffs are a multibillion-dollar, one-way payment by China to the U.S. Treasury …
" 'In fact, both sides will pay,' Kudlow said in an interview on Fox News. 'Both sides will pay in these things.' "
But of course, the Times added, "Kudlow's acknowledgment was merely a recognition of Economics 101."
Ah, yes — Economics 101. What could be more elementary to deep economic thinkers than the reality that taxes imposed on the makers and/or sellers of goods are not merely paid by the enterprises themselves (Chinese export operations, say, and U.S. importers) but are passed on to, among others, "consumers" in the form higher prices?
Funny thing is, doesn't it seem we often hear proposals to finance expensive public programs with taxes on "mega-rich" corporations — and persistent complaints about businesses not paying "their fair share" in taxes — all without anyone invoking basic insights from Economics 101 to explain that those business taxes would in reality be passed on to consumers and workers?