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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

Tariffs are an inefficient tax on consumption. If the parties keep failing to agree to figure out how to increase revenue, this is the best stop gap we could hope for. Especially if it generates over $1T.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/19/economy/us-tariff-rebate-chec...

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Why are you implying that the goal is to increase revenue? This admin also pushed for tax cuts simultaneously and the budget they passed added to the deficit again.

Tariffs at their current rate canceled the deficit added by the tax cuts according to experts.

What experts that are not part of this administration? He fired people who gave him numbers he didn’t like already like the head of BLS so I don’t trust any numbers self reported by them.

And oh, is this also with that made up math they used to say that continuing the existing tax cuts past their expiration date didn’t count as increasing the deficit?

You're joking, right? Show me the money.

https://www.bestmoney.com/tax-relief/learn-more/how-trump-ta... is more of a personal finance website, but it reports (from the Tax Foundation), over a 10 year timeframe, a $3.8T total deficit increase over previous law. (CBO estimates are less favorable on deficit increases.) The same article estimates $2.1T in tariff revenue based on policy in early September.

Seems closer to plugging half the gap than "cancelled"

Yes, Trump got 17 trillion dollars. pinkie

Even if true (it's not) why are we giving tax breaks to billionaires to cancel out revenue instead of paying off our 29T deficit?

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