I highly doubt this. It takes a special kind of stupidity not to understand the costs of building new manufacturing facilities.
Not to mention the lead times for construction and the expense of hiring and training more employees when the facilities eventually are ready to begin production.
I am confident that many, MANY Republican elected officials have a heaping helping of special stupidity. I have heard them speak. They are exceptionally stupid about many things.
They’re not that stupid. But they know their base is. GOP elected officials were well aware the tariffs were just a way to shift tax burden from their rich patrons to the American consumer.
“The base” given the choice of getting 20 dollars taken directly by the government as an explicit tax, or getting $19 taken as explicit tax and $6 taken indirectly by carried over pricing, will take the $5 loss just to say they gave one fewer dollar to the government.
The tariffs that Trump imposed after his previous tariffs were struck down have been struck down.
An update as a small business that paid about $12,000 in illegal tariffs. For 10% of whatever is recovered, our import broker is filing for the refund on our behalf. He said be patient and don’t hold our breath.
A Trump tariff bit my sister.
If you didn’t make that joke, I would have.
Can you explain, for the dumb kids?
It’s a reference to the opening credits for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the credits are full of off-topic comments (including about moose bites), which are choked off by “the management”, only to creep back in, and be smacked down again, and finally are replaced at the last moment with all new ones, in a jarring style, at “great expense”.
So, a play on the repeated whack-a-mole nature of Trump’s tariffs being struck down and revived, along with the great expense to the economy.
Having said that and before I have to put a mod-hat on, I think we should put the running gag down, and the other comparison of building a castle in the swamp is right out for a P&E thread.
(not an official note, and if you take the time to explain why it’s appropriate to the thread’s subject it’ll probably be okay. For example, the difficulties of building a castle in a swamp: it’s futile, and repeating it over and over again until it somehow succeeds is wasteful madness considering the cost and consequences)
Thanks!
It succeeded because he built the fourth castle on top of the first three!
Yes, but (and again, back to the subject at hand) the cost and risks would be obvious when it comes to the realities of building a castle in the swamp, OR to one-sidedly putting a wide range of tariffs on our trading partners without a care of the legality or the consequences. Bad enough to do it once, and be called on it, but to keep repeating it, even if he eventually comes up with one that sticks is a terrible idea. And the costs and efforts to keep doing it and then be forced to pay it back is wasted treasure from government in (snerk) sunk costs.
IE - castle in swamp or tariffs, doing it once is a terrible mistake with obvious and predictable consequences. Constantly doubling down on it, especially once you’ve see said consequences (well, not Trump, but for those supporting him in government and elsewhere) is nothing short of egotistical madness.
Since the taxpayers were paying for it (said castle and the tariffs) the costs are zero for trump. Why not build another?
Plus, he can play the always-useful Victim Card™, which will hopefully (to him) boost the flagging support among the faithful.
(We had a character here in the Soviet of Washington who submitted an initiative or three in every election cycle. They were so poorly written that even if they passed, they were frequently struck down in court; if that happened, he wound inevitably put out a fundraising request to his followers for more money so that he could keep up the righteous fight. I came to the conclusion that he was deliberately crafting tainted initiatives, especially when he was caught siphoning the funds raised.)
Stealing that chair from the office supply store didn’t help either.
Anyway, sometimes the opportunity to play the victim is more lucrative than whatever scam was shut down in the first place.
I have lived most of my life in Washington, so I instantly knew you meant Eyman.
Not sure if this tariff game is going to work for Republicans in the long run though.