Benefits of Bringing Back a Tariff System

[Smaland]

In the U.S. back in the 1960's, an 18-year-old male who had graduated from high school could get a factory job, with a wage that would support a family of four on its own, at least with careful money management.

The U.S. could bring heavy industry back to America with the correct economic policies. The federal government could be funded by bringing back tariffs (import taxes). In case they didn't produce enough revenue, a national sales tax could be used as a supplement, and the personal income tax would be repealed.

Tariffs would be applied differently than they were back then, since they would be applied to both domestic and foreign companies. Any product or service produced or rendered in the United States, regardless of a company's origin, would be exempt from a tariff. Anything produced or rendered outside the U.S. would be subject to a tariff.

This would give corporations the incentive to relocate/locate their production here in the U.S. Also, they would have to compete with each other for American workers, bidding up labor's wages.

Because they would be making adequate wages, young men would have a reasonable chance to find and marry young women, and start a family.

[edward222]

In the U.S. back in the 1960's, an 18-year-old male who had graduated from high school could get a factory job, with a wage that would support a family of four on its own, at least with careful money management.
.

18-years-old-male/female in 2015 who had graduated in high school can still work in factory jobs, that can support a family
with or without money management
hhhmmmm

[Smaland]

18-years-old-male/female in 2015 who had graduated in high school can still work in factory jobs, that can support a family
with or without money management
hhhmmmm

Since the 1970's, the export of American heavy industry and factory jobs to China and other places has mostly destroyed the blue-collar middle class in the U.S. There is a remnant of factory jobs available, but they are mostly gone now. If a high school graduate can't afford to go to college, and doesn't have the aptitude for a profession such as medicine or the law, probably the only alternative is a low-paying job such as a cashier in a convenience store.

[Smitty]

"Every nation that rose to world power did so by protecting and nurturing its manufacturing base - from Great Britain under the Acts of Navigation, to the United States from the Civil War to the Roaring Twenties, to Bismarck's Germany before World War I, to postwar Japan, to China today. No nation rose to world power on free trade. From Britain after 1860 to America after 1960, free trade has been the policy of powers that put consumption before production, today before tomorrow. ... We have spurned the economic patriotism of Hamilton, Jackson, Clay, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Coolidge to embrace free trade. And so it is that we now find ourselves under the commercial domination of the People's Republic of China." - Patrick J. Buchanan, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?

[Wadaad]

tariffs and such are motivated by patriotism

Corporations are motivated by one thing...and its not patriotism.

The tarriff era is over, your version of America is long dead and will not return without a revolutionary re-vamping on what motivates your establishment.

[Wolf Howl]

18-years-old-male/female in 2015 who had graduated in high school can still work in factory jobs, that can support a family
with or without money management
hhhmmmm
In the past 20 years we've lost 60,000 factories and we're only hemorrhaging more and more. Once the TPP gets finalized manufacturing will be completely gone in this country.