Tariffs Can Save America from Bankruptcy

Tariffs Can Save America from Bankruptcy

By Cliff Kincaid

Anybody with half a brain tied behind his back, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, knows that the United States is going bankrupt and is on the road to socialism. The victory of the “Democratic Socialist” in New York City, America’s largest city, proves the point. He is a liar and a fraud, having sold himself as half-black, but the biggest fraud is the socialist recipe for America’s affordability crisis that he is promoting and winning with. His toxic recipe for a complete national collapse could easily go national.

President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” promises that we will be able to pay for the socialist state through tax cuts and deregulation, and he may be right. That will buy us some time. Their hope is that rapid economic expansion will generate enough money for the federal leviathan that we will avoid total “obliteration” financially.

We are facing in a financial way what the Iranians experienced with the bunker buster bombs.    

We know that the bill will at least temporarily add more debt through large federal deficits. Federal entitlement programs remain, and one of the most gruesome outgrowths of Obamacare, the expansion of Medicaid to illegals and deadbeats, has only been slightly whittled down with a few work requirements.

Republicans are dealing with a poor hand they have been given by socialist Democrats. They understand that it is hard to manage a welfare state.

In addition to the “Democratic Socialist” opposition, conservatives must deal with the moralizing from the Catholic priests and bishops, with D.C. Cardinal McElroy telling CNN that Trump’s policies are morally repugnant. The Vatican he serves is $90 million in deficit and they were recently asking for donations through the “Peter’s Pence” scam being collected on Sundays.

Please Mr. McElroy, go back to the Bible, for once.  "Thou shalt not steal" presupposes private property.  McElroy and his "Christians" addicted to government money are morally repugnant.

A new study finds that one big factor in the rise of the cost of living has been health care, with medical premiums rising an incredible 301 percent from 2001 to 2023. Republicans tried to repeal Obamacare, which was backed by the Catholic Church, but they failed and it led to astronomical expansion of Medicaid under the Democrats. Hence, the recent brouhaha over “cuts” to the program, which is now available to illegal aliens and subsidizes couch potatoes.

The major media raised a hue and cry over minor adjustments to the program, hoping to breathe life in the Democratic Party. This is the only issue they have.  

We must face the fact that the federal government is too big and it will continue to grow in power and influence over us. We are beginning to live like the Indians we conquered who are now living on reservations under federal jurisdiction.

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is a source I consulted early on in my career and its writers made me aware of the pro-freedom forces in the world trying to educate people about how Big Government inevitably leads to socialism and communism. Its newsletter has great articles about such topics as the New York City Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Diogo Acosta, the new president of FEE, notes, “Mamdani’s socialist solutions are actually part of the infection, not the cure. Socialism doesn’t make things affordable. It makes them scarce. Ask any Venezuelans who remember when their country was Latin America’s richest. Ask any Cubans why they risk their lives on makeshift rafts. Ask the American Pilgrims who nearly starved before discovering the miracle of private property.”

Another article examines the failure of DOGE, which is timely in view of how its brain, Elon Musk, has now announced a new political party to deal with the budget mess. He is correct about how the swamp continues to expand.

In some ways that are entirely legitimate, some of the new spending in President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill makes complete sense. He wants more money for national defense and border security. These are constitutional obligations of the federal government that Joe Biden, now living behind gated walls with warning signs around his Rehoboth Beach mansion, pretended not to understand. He was a traitor to America’s sovereignty who made this spending necessary.

Where I disagree with FEE, a free market group, is in its fierce opposition to tariffs, the taxing power of the federal government that enabled us to avid the personal income tax for decades and financed the rise of our industrial superpower status as a nation.

Tariffs can save America. Through 2034, one analysis shows, the Trump tariffs currently in effect would reduce debt by about $2.7 trillion. But anther characteristic of tariffs is the ability to avoid other forms of federal taxation.  

Trump’s tariffs should remain in effect and even be expanded, especially on communist countries like China. We should not be doing any aid and trade with Russia, a major military threat to Europe and America.  The announced trade deal with Vietnam should be reviewed and rejected.

I am comforted by the prospect that, while we are on the road to bankruptcy, America’s soldiers represent the same spirit that gave us independence almost 250 years ago. Recruitment is up and there is a new sense of patriotism in America.

That gives us some time to save ourselves.  
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• Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org