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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

The tariffs don't actually bring in money, they just move money from one place (US taxpayers, who'd otherwise use it productively) and put it elsewhere (the treasury).

Now normally this might be put to some sensible use, perhaps building infrastructure, but since this revenue is being used to offset huge tax cuts for a tiny group of people determined to turn around and use the capital for (let's be real here) speculation it's a net negative.

In the end we're going to look back at this chapter of 'Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation' and say "Well obviously those idiots should've see that coming."

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To say that tariffs don't actually bring in money is simply wrong. We are talking about income to the government. Yes, tariffs take actual money and give it to the government. It doesn't matter where it came from, inside or outside the US.

If your definitions are used, then literally nothing actually brings in money. It just moves it from one place to another.

It's going to be the biggest heist in American history. That tariff revenue is as good as gone. It's not about whether the money can actually be brought in, but more about the reality that crooks have access to the pot. It's really all about that. These are not fiscal conservatives generating revenue to pay down debt, these are actual crooks that will gift it to each other.

Yeah, the latest thing is the the 20 billion $ Argentina bailout (or Bessents hedge fund buddies exit liquidity).

20 billion ... gone.

Another 15 billion will go to soybean farmers to bail them out. And so on.

You might be ahead of the US president in understanding how tariffs work.

Not true, issuing a loan brings in money (albeit mirrored by an equal amount of debt). So the federal deficit brings in a substantial amount of money. In the same vein, paying down the national debt completely, an oft-cited goal of some national leaders, destroys all money.

Setting aside the issue of generating money, which is not under discussion, and which loans can help with, do you really still claim that "The tariffs don't actually bring in money"? 51% of the government income is from income taxes, which you would say "doesn't actually bring in money." So what exactly is the point of talking the way you are talking?

Our current leadership and their populist supporters are super gung-ho on converting the US into a mercantile economy like China. That's what these tariffs are about: creating an environment of protectionism from which the US will emerge as an export powerhouse, with massive trade imbalances in the US' favor.

So in their own language, these tariffs are merely domestic transfers of capital and do not 'bring in money.'

The language under discussion is the national debt and deficit.

You’re trying to make a political point by changing the definition of words.

I may agree with your point, but pretending like tariffs don’t generate income that bring down the deficit is not the way to argue it. It just convinces people you aren’t arguing in good faith, or don’t understand simple math.

The last legal ruling on the matter found that they are mostly being enacted illegally by using emergency powers[1] and may end up being refunded entirely. So until they are actually able to be booked, we can't say they are impacting the budget one way or another. If they aren't legalized then the work it took to collect and then refund them all is money that may as well have been incinerated.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/08/29/nx-s1-5522457/tariffs-trump-t...

> The tariffs don't actually bring in money, they just move money from one place (US taxpayers, who'd otherwise use it productively) and put it elsewhere (the treasury).

So your argument seems to be “We have yet to see whether these new tariffs are legal and therefore whether the income will be able to be kept.”

That’s a far cry from saying tariffs don’t generate income for the government, which is what I understood you to be saying.

Yes, they're essentially a sales tax on Americans. But from a budget deficit perspective, they do bring in money to the gov (citizens be dammed).

So instead of taxing our wealthier citizens and corporations more, we tax them less and instead tax everyone by raising the cost of imported goods.

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