Comments by "Bo McGillacutty" (@Mrbfgray) on "It's hard to come up with a dumber formula than this: GOP lawmaker" video.

@schlafin WRONG. They subsidize certain industries with a tax that consumers pay, and nations with the highest trade friction are typically the poorest. Detroit has long benefitted by the 25% tariff on pickups and believe me YOU pay for the anti-competitive results from of F and GM, big part of the reason those two make most of their money on PUs. Be nice if you could buy a superior Toyota for 25% less, hmmm? The only exceptions might be countries that don't even have said industries to protect, then they are just akin to a sales tax. (Costa Rica)
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@schlafin They ARE subsidies, semantics doesn't change anything. Cause and effect are to "protect" national industries profitability , aka, subsidize. This is also why trade agreements require direct subsidy limitations along with indirect such as tariffs, the effects are nearly identical . Most seem to have been duped into false distinctions by the same interests who advocate such subsidies, pretending they are something else.
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@schlafin Not synonymous, effects are a little different but effectively still a subsidy, both tax the general population to the benefit of a select industry or group of industries. One taxes sales and the other generally income tax supported. Economists call tariffs subsidies. Either way we all pay the distributed costs for concentrated benefits. Tariffs are much less efficient mechanism and should be avoided with national security exceptions, or obviously, as retaliation for competing nations subsidies and tariffs. For sure, the more everyone deters free trade the less prosperous we all become on average. That is why The Constitution forbids tariffs between states which we sure as hell would have if allowed and the US would not be the economic powerhouse it is but more like Europe, and hence the attempt to create "the united states of Europe", or at least that was the 'proper reason', a host of other things got mixed in making that goal questionable. It was estimated that the cost to the US economy for every auto worker job save back in 1980ish was several times the wages/salaries of those jobs. Putting them on direct welfare would have been less taxing.
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Agree in general and tariffs may sometimes be required-- however, tariffs ARE SUBSIDIES and a tax on consumers!
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@schlafin Another way you know tariffs are subsidies is they are almost always driven by unions and especially effected industry lobbyists. It's also why Detroit got away with offering rubbish cars in the 1970's in particular. Allowing Japanese competition induced Detroit to get it's act together. Next we'll see Chinese EVs destroying Detroit unless we are foolish enough to price the superior completion out.
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