Trump’s tariff revenues won’t allow lower taxes

On Tuesday in Michigan, President Donald Trump promised that his policies and tariffs would bring a “golden age of America.” Trump often makes oversized promises that don’t deliver.

Last Sunday, for example, Trump made the extraordinary claim that one day, Americans won’t be paying any income taxes because the revenues from his tariffs will be sufficient to offset the revenues lost by eliminating the federal income tax. The president said, “It’ll take a little while before we do that, but we’re going to be cutting taxes, and it’s possible we’ll do a complete tax cut, because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.”

This isn’t serious commentary from the president. Plausible revenues from Trump’s tariffs would not come anywhere near to offsetting the revenues from

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