Day: March 13, 2025

How Do Tariffs Work?

The popular meme these days is the word ‘tariffs’….it is the weapon of choice by the president in his economic war with trading partners…some will applaud these actions and others, including myself, do not think it is the save all that we are told almost daily.

Donny the Man has upped the tariffs on 3 of our trading partners….and many Americans are confused.

Purely as an FYI post for those that do not completely understand what is involved with tariffs I offer this explanation….

Like the Townshend Acts and Bacon’s Rebellion, tariffs are one of those topics you may vaguely remember from high school history class. Let’s take another look at how tariffs work—and what happens to the economy when they don’t.

Tariffs are taxes imposed on imports or exports. If the U.S. government imposes a 25 percent tariff on imports of, say, Canadian timber, it means that American companies buying timber from Canada will have to pay a quarter of the price of timber to the U.S. government.

Tariffs can be imposed for a number of reasons, not all of them economic. Because they make importing more expensive, they can be used to promote the development of domestic industries. They can also be used as a geopolitical weapon to exert pressure on trading partners or to punish non-allies. Like all kinds of taxes, they are also a means of generating government revenue.

Crucially, none of these measures is foolproof. If the U.S. imposes tariffs on Canada, for example, Canada may simply start trading with countries that don’t impose tariffs, cutting the U.S. out of the equation. That could then weaken the U.S. economy and its ability to engage in international trade.

Tariffs impact companies that rely on imports as well as ordinary consumers. If a country that imposes tariffs fails to develop domestic production and find new trade partners—a process that can take years, if not decades—tariffs are bound to raise consumer prices, because the importers will need to recuperate the additional costs they pay to the government through higher markups on the products they sell. As a result, tariffs have often resulted in economic recessions in the countries that impose them.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/how-do-tariffs-work

I hope this article will everyone understand what is at risk by imposing them….and make up your mind (if that is possible) on whether you support or oppose these actions by the president.

Please read it carefully and just the parts that you think you know….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Democrats Are In Trouble

Dems are facing a quandary….low voter confidence and now the new spending bill….

The government will shut down at midnight Friday unless Congress passes a spending measure before then, and the deadline is putting Senate Democrats in a bind: They don’t want to vote for the GOP-authored resolution before them, but they fear the alternative of triggering a shutdown is worse. Coverage:

  • Punchbowl News reports that the most likely scenario, for now, is that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer will settle for a face-saving measure to avert a shutdown. He’ll demand votes on amendments, including a separate vote on the Democrats’ own continuing resolution. “It’s theater,” the outlet notes, given that the Democratic plan has no chance of passing. But it would allow Schumer to say Democrats were trying to fight back.
  • The Hill similarly reports that Senate Democrats were saying privately they will not allow a shutdown to happen, meaning they would ultimately have to vote in favor of the six-month Republican plan—despite pressure from the party’s progressive wing. As Axios puts it, “Schumer is balancing his deep distaste for a shutdown against pressure from the grassroots to do more to stand up to Trump.”
  • One fear among Democrats is that a shutdown would leave federal employees even more vulnerable to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, per CNN. “If it shuts down, what is Elon Musk going to allow to open back up?” asked Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. “That’s a big concern of mine. How many more veterans is Elon, and this administration, going to fire? So, there’s not a good option here.” Independent Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, called it a “choice between two terrible alternatives.”
  • Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is already on board publicly with voting for the GOP plan, reports the Washington Post. A shutdown would “absolutely punish millions, millions of Americans,” Fetterman said this week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says the GOP measure, which already has passed the House, is the only route to keeping the government open. “The question of whether or not it stays funded now is up to the Democrats,” said the Republican leader.

This is a problem….do they show backbone and fight the new spending bill which they will be accused of causing a government shutdown or do they support and betray a lot of what they say the are for?

The Dems are in trouble.

For decades now the Dems have been losing support among the working class….the slide started, in my opinion, with Bubba Clinton and his embrace of big business and then it became more about the cash than the policies that would benefit the American people.

And now the studies show that it is getting to its lowest levels of support….for me I lost all confidence, what little I had back then, with the 1980 election….

Voters still have a sour view of Democrats six weeks after President Donald Trump and Republicans swept into Washington with control of all branches of the federal government, according to a new poll.

A plurality of voters — 40 percent — said the Democratic Party doesn’t have any strategy whatsoever for responding to Trump, according to the survey by the liberal firm Blueprint that was shared first with POLITICO. Another 24 percent said Democrats have a game plan, but it’s a bad one.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/06/poll-democrats-trump-disarray-00215291

The most recent study shows a serious lack of support…..

Out of power in Washington, Democrats are looking for ways to win voters back. A new poll suggests they have their work cut out for them. The Quinnipiac University survey found that 31% of registered voters have a favorable opinion of their party, while 43% have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party. That amounts to the largest advantage in favorability the GOP has enjoyed since 2008, Axios reports. A CNN poll released last week had similar results.

The flip side in Quinnipiac’s poll was no more encouraging for Democrats, with 57% of registered voters reporting an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party and 45% feeling the same way about the GOP. The findings, for which the pollsters report a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, alone aren’t evidence that Democrats need despair, Aaron Blake writes in a Washington Post analysis. The same polls showed Republicans were less popular in the first year of President Trump’s first term than Democrats are now, he points out. A Quinnipiac poll had Republicans with a 67% unfavorable rating in August 2017.

In addition, another poll released this week found that some of Trump’s early actions aren’t popular, per Reuters. Most respondents of both parties oppose his moves to end the practice of granting citizenship to children born in the US regardless of the parents’ immigration status, for instance. Overall, the share of respondents who disapproved of Trump’s performance rose from 39% to 46% since the first two days of his second term. The Reuters/Ipsos poll reported a margin of error of about 4 percentage points. “While it does seem Trump is getting a honeymoon to some extent, his numbers are still not impressive by historical standards,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

I will admit that the Progressive Caucus does have a bit of concern for the working person and they are showing their disdain for the more conservative colleagues……

The head of a leading U.S. progressive group on Thursday accused the Democratic National Committee—which will choose new leadership this weekend—of trying to silence rank-and-file activists and voters, showing that the Democratic Party’s governing body is failing to connect with the working-class Americans who helped deliver the White House and Congress to Republicans.

“This moment demands a Democratic Party that provides more than just reactive opposition to an administration bent on rigging our economic and political systems in favor of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals on Earth,” Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign, said in a statement ahead of Thursday evening’s final DNC candidate forum. “It demands leaders who put the party’s grassroots base ahead of the donor class and articulate a real vision that rejects [Republican President] Donald Trump’s corporate rule—starting with renouncing corporate money themselves.”

“Unfortunately,” Geevarghese lamented, “Democratic leadership is failing disastrously to meet this urgent mandate. Ahead of tonight’s forum, the DNC is actively working to silence rank-and-file Democratic activists and base voters calling for a ban on dark money in primaries and the rejection of corporate funding. In a last-minute move, they shut the event off from the public and even deliberately shared the wrong address for where grassroots supporters are allowed to gather.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/progressives-dnc

For me I would like to see the Dems grow a spine and get down to doing what needs to be done….but their actions in the first days of the new admin does not bode well for the country….they are too mamby pamby….

https://www.commondreams.org/news/democrats-prepared-to-oppose-trump-s-unqualified-cabinet-picks

I have bee a Progressive since the beginning of my political life but in those days we were insulted by morons that have the IQ of a garden slug. 

For me there are two major policies that the Dems should push and push hard….at least for now….

Implementing Universal Health Coverage (UHC). That is, a publicly administered system that guarantees that all people have access to the full range of quality health services when and where they need them. Financing of UHC could come entirely from broad-based tax revenues. Coverage would be universal and automatic. Covered services would include inpatient, outpatient, dental, mental health, and long-term health, as well as prescription drugs. All three levels of the U.S. government (federal, state, and local) would be involved in the health care system.

Cutting military spending. The United States spent $820 billion on national
defense during the fiscal year 2023. It spends nearly 8.4 times as much on its
military as Russia does and more than three times the amount of China. While the U.S. comprises just over 4 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for nearly 40 percent of global military spending. Between 2001 and 2022, the U.S. spent $8 trillion on war. The notion that such enormous defense spending is important for national security questions is utterly absurd. The U.S. homeland has never been invaded and no nation threatens U.S. national security. The obscene amount of money that the U.S. spends on defense, which different methodologies estimated to be above $1.5 trillion for the fiscal year 2022. Money saved from cuts in
the defense budget can go towards supporting social programs and/or for
reducing the national debt. Arguing for reforms in Social Security and Medicare when the country spends so much money on the military is morally indefensible and will become politically unacceptable if people realize how wasteful and harmful military sending is.There are other policies that need attention but these two, for now, would illustrate the the Dems are truly fighting for the working class.

The Dems are truly in trouble because very few people think the party will make a difference without some change in tactics.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”