Trump: "From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation and the US was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been ... then in 1913, for reason unknown to mankind, they established the income tax."
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Um, um, um…no. Our economy was weak until the Industrial Revolution and then that was built on the backs of the lower class, immigrants, farmers, and an integrated economic trade network. (And yes it took money from those who had it but without a work force, their money was useless).
"Mankind" === Trump, in his mind. This is a FREQUENT trope of his - "nobody knew", when it's just HE didn't know. cf "Groceries. I adopted that word. Nobody talked about groceries"
One might be prompted to find out why those tariffs, working so wonderfully, were replaced with an income tax.
If one were interested in anything other than conceding to ego.
It’s clear to this day that a part of him still believes tarrifs are paid by other countries, and that any day the entire global delegation of leaders are going to be showing up with big buckets of cash.
This proves this inbred bastard never opened a fucking history book. If his racist daddy hadn't paid Nazi assholes to take his Nazi son's tests, this bastard would be on the streets.
There are people in TexaFloraTucky nodding along with his babble.
And he knows it.
These are the same people he and Musk convinced to vote against the top performing economy in the G7.
We just had the steam boat, some rich people had cars, airplanes were for crazy people, antibiotics were a dream, the world was neatly divided by the colonial powers, American isolationism was intact, and women's suffrage was not even on the table.
The first income tax was levied due to the costs of the Civil War. When it became a permanent tax in 1913 it was designed to have those with the most be taxed accordingly- it was enacted to cover Congress spending. GOP Congress uses their power to reverse the tax on the wealthy.
I'm listening and I can't understand what is actually going to be done. It's all interspersed with stream of conscious drivel so it's impossible to follow. I did hear the bit where I think he said how kind he and Americans are?
He’s rambling on again, something about how egg prices weren’t his fault and how he’s solved the problem so they won’t have to use plastic eggs for Easter. 😳
I wonder if Americans know that ultimately THEY will pay the tariffs. When I buy something in the US, I pay tariffs when my order arrives, not the US. 🤔
I had to turn the Trump tariff speech off. After announcing his plan for tariffs, he then turned to his greatest hits. This could go on for hours. #OutOfHere
They say their goal is to remove income tax, but really that's just another tax cut for the rich because they won't pay any more taxes than the person who earns $7.25 an hour.
The time in our nations history where the lower class was pushed so far into poverty that that our great great grandparents had to work in factories at age 8
I’m trying to understand why white America likes the uneducated/ under educated, rich, white men, who are clearly incapable of getting the job at hand done?
What’s that about? 🥱
I've never hated anyone like I do him in my life.
I've known who the piece of shit was since the 1980s. Throw the fact that I have Ukrainian ancestry on both sides and...
I suppose certain ppl are enamoured by someone who has a lot of money. No thought about how they attained that wealth.
It doesn’t take a lot to impress people 🤷🏽♀️
Some people are very basic in their thinking, & are easily impressed by how much money one has.
How this greedy, tacky, racist, rapist, who is a habitual liar,impresses anyone is beyond my understanding.
Perhaps it’s time that education stops being illegal in the USA!
Ah yes, robber barons, soaring poverty, child labor, little to no infrastructure, life expectancy in the 50s, and a quality of life only found now in third world countries, what an age. 😒
Yes how many Chinese people died building the railroads in California and The Rockies. The Pacific immagration of Chinese was the first to be restrictive,the term Paper Sons how they came in memorizing the name of a fake father.
You blossomed and dominated the world after WWII until 2025.
Exploiting the locals, sure, but mainly exploiting Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And, funnily enough, 'free trade' (WTO, Bretton Woods, etc.) was key to that.
Perhaps you're just unaware of American history pre WW's but there was a time where a group of white men used the SLAVE labor of others, indentured labor also without pay, to build their empires. Post slavery, those same men refused to pay for the work they reaped the benefits of.
So ignorant. His history is bad, his lessons learned are non-existent, he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room and even after surrounding himself with idiots he isn't. Just a loser.
@upenn.edu Wharton School of Business is a joke if they produced this POS! What is that degree worth after listening to this graduate from their "prestigious" school?!?!?
It seems he thinks that countries will just pay 45% or whatever more for the privilege of trading with the US. He thinks they wont change their trade behavior at all, or raise prices on goods or any of it. Like he actually thinks this works like protection money.
This confirms what I thought: he wants to eliminate all income taxes and go with what is essentially a national sales tax, a regressive tax that impacts those with the least income the hardest.
It's quite clear that Donald Trump is pants-on-head retarded.
The income tax happened in part because it's not possible to run a continent-spanning country with tariffs. On top of that, they make the government dependent upon foreign trade, so the protectionist goals failed.
There was also no indoor plumbing, running water, electricity, or modern medicine. Also, we had about one-tenth of the population we have today. His constant usage of this ridiculous comparison is like apples/oranges on steroids.
What a shock...so this is about rich people not paying taxes. Can't we get rid of all these billionaires that aren't willing to pay their fair share or EVER take accountability for anything?
Of course he would see it that way - income tax is (theoretically) proportional to income, so the wealthiest pay the most, whereas tariffs are the opposite & overwhelmingly paid by the poorest people.
We were a segregated nation, we were a nation where women weren't hired for well paying jobs nor allowed to attend universities, we were a nation of child laborers, we were a nation where people died at age 39.4 on average, we were a nation of tuberculosis, measles and polio...ffs
During that time period the U.S. federal government was much smaller and most departments were funded by tariffs.
The Post Office was the biggest & made up half(!) of all government workers at the time.
Trump is delusional to think the present day govt can run on tariffs.
And he’s wrong about what the economy was like 100 years ago. It was terrible—robber baron. Tariffs made us weaker. We became stronger with an income tax & free trade agreements. That helped build the middle class in this country.
He has no ideas or theories about the economy. He's an empty suit who's simply reading words off the teleprompter that the Project 2025 a-holes are putting there. All he cares about is that he avoided going to jail and he'll say/do whatever it takes to get his butt to his golf courses each weekend.
In the 1930s, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, enacted in 1930, is widely blamed for exacerbating the Great Depression by significantly reducing international trade and prompting retaliatory tariffs from other countries, leading to a 66% decrease in world trade between 1929 and 1934.
He's going to quickly relearn another 18th century lesson. Flat rate tariffs can be easily cheated. To avoid the tariffs foreign vendors will import goods to their own domestic warehouses at or below cost and then jack up the price before selling to domestic customers. Or just fake the invoices.
He's parroting what he's been told, he has No fucking grasp of economic history. Does Project 2025 have economists or is this Heritage Goundation horseshit? It's not Chicago school. This fucknuttery is UnPresidented.
This is how folks should push back “Trump is trying to take us back to the days of robber barons. The days before weekends existed and when children worked 14 hour shifts instead of going to school”
We didn’t have paved roads and heated houses with coal and outside towns they used outhouses. We used income tax to fight 2 world wars invent computers and go to the moon. I like the ROI
The idea of economic policy based on Trump's understanding of history is MUCH scarier than if the economic policy was simply based on people he liked and didn't like.
Trump is an idiot and a fool. While applauding tariffs from yesteryears he’s completely ignorant to the fact they led to two of the greatest economic depressions in our history. Trump also boasts that he wants to bring manufacturing back to US completely unaware tariffs will not be an effective tool
I have always spent a significant amount of time in my US post-Reconstruction class teaching about tariffs, monetary policy, and the economy in the late 19th/early 20th century...I just...I know we know this man knows nothing, but the sheer ignorance here is melting my brain & making me feel crazy.
Except he doesn't know 'nothing' - he knows that his circle of rich, Atlas-shrugged-delusional rich friends think progressive income tax is theft and don't want to pay it, regardless of the negative impacts on society that come from flat tax models like tariffs and sales taxes.
Yes, definitely sure...I was commenting more narrowly that he doesn't know anything about the period of history he was describing in such halcyon tones or how tariffs shaped the economic dynamics of that era.
From an academic perspective, how amusing is it that people teaching about this period in history will have to explain bad science fiction, internet memes, reality TV game shows, Nintendo's Mario franchise and the character of Luigi, and so many more niche cultural references.
Thanks for posting.
Is he also positioning himself as Protector in Chief? One who takes away what you already had and requires you to bend to various wishes of his to have what you had again? A form of power?
If yes, would a business school recommend this MO as a way to build a strong business?
A tariff is a regressive tax - it takes a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than high-income earners. Income tax is a progressive or proportional tax - people pay their fair share. FOTUS hates the idea of paying his fair share.
Except the reasons for the income tax ARE known and were wildly popular when instituted. Tariffs disproportionately burden the the working and middle classes, barely affecting the wealthy.
On target, but it was the other way around. Conservatives (at least rural ones) had been pushing for Prohibition for decades. With the income tax, it became possible to to do it and not worry about the end of the Whiskey excise tax, which had been the gov't's main source of income since the 1790s.
Comments
If one were interested in anything other than conceding to ego.
He thinks it’s like a hack to avoid income taxes
He's not talking to us.
There are people in TexaFloraTucky nodding along with his babble.
And he knows it.
These are the same people he and Musk convinced to vote against the top performing economy in the G7.
And I guess those workers at the triangle building and the child laborers just didn't know how wealthy they were.
I think the reason is stated there having to do with the inequities of excise taxes burdening the working classes disproportionately.
Trump wants to return to this working class burden for Musk.
We just had the steam boat, some rich people had cars, airplanes were for crazy people, antibiotics were a dream, the world was neatly divided by the colonial powers, American isolationism was intact, and women's suffrage was not even on the table.
he didn't earn it.
He never earned ANYTHING in his life but contempt, as far as I am concerned.
Get ready
For
15% - 20%
INFLATION
😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
They have failed miserably.
Most of the population lived in abject poverty.
Life expectancy was below 40.
The union movement came about to end the Gilded Age.
Doesn't add anything to our country!
What’s that about? 🥱
Proof that burnt orange goes with red, white, & blue?
I've known who the piece of shit was since the 1980s. Throw the fact that I have Ukrainian ancestry on both sides and...
He's in the Offal Office and needs to be in prison instead.
It doesn’t take a lot to impress people 🤷🏽♀️
How this greedy, tacky, racist, rapist, who is a habitual liar,impresses anyone is beyond my understanding.
Perhaps it’s time that education stops being illegal in the USA!
You blossomed and dominated the world after WWII until 2025.
Exploiting the locals, sure, but mainly exploiting Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And, funnily enough, 'free trade' (WTO, Bretton Woods, etc.) was key to that.
Robber Barons
We were nowhere CLOSE to being our wealthiest, proportionally, through the turn of the 20th century.
Measured almost any way! Total GDP, GDP per capita, total wealth, wealth per capita, anything.
Crusty old thug.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tariffs_in_the_United_States
The income tax happened in part because it's not possible to run a continent-spanning country with tariffs. On top of that, they make the government dependent upon foreign trade, so the protectionist goals failed.
But America is Back!
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3llu7rbszuo2h
OK, he's always REALLY creepy, but you know what I mean.
I’m not sure referring to economics from before slavery was abolished is especially germane today, eh?
But Trump was still being purposely stupid.
Friday should be interesting.
The Post Office was the biggest & made up half(!) of all government workers at the time.
Trump is delusional to think the present day govt can run on tariffs.
standards...
And a tax proportional to your income was a good idea.
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/11/1169247885/past-is-prologue-talking-taxes
Ring a Bell?
#Resist
“What were they thinking!?!?”
Is he also positioning himself as Protector in Chief? One who takes away what you already had and requires you to bend to various wishes of his to have what you had again? A form of power?
If yes, would a business school recommend this MO as a way to build a strong business?
#MAGA is this what you voted for?
Tariffs ended and a tax system was created so the wealthy would pay their fair share.
And the Wealthy want their $$$ back, all of it.