Tip culture is already out of control. This can only make it worse.
“the Senate passed the No Tax on Tips Act 100–0, which “creates a federal income tax deduction of up to $25,000 a year for certain types of cash tips for eligible employees,” per The Washington Post. (“Cash tips” include tips given not just in cash but also via credit and debit cards.) This applies to employees earning $160,000 or less annually.”
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“If you actually wanted to help the household budgets of working-class people, the best thing you could do is refrain from imposing 10 percent across-the-board tariffs (and more for goods imported from China). It’s not clear to me that no taxes on tips, though President Donald Trump touted it repeatedly from the campaign trail, will do all that much, or that there was a ton of accurate tip-reporting happening in the first place.”
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“creates an opportunity for people to try to categorize their normal income as tips, and how much they can now get away with remains to be seen.”
“economic development officials and lawmakers from several states say that the uncertainty fueled by Trump’s on-again, off-again trade wars is keeping many foreign businesses from pouring money into the U.S. market right now. And it signals the uneven impact the tariffs are having on reshoring American manufacturing — Trump’s stated goal for raising rates to the highest levels in a century.”
“There are federal tax benefits for racehorses (although there’s a chance they might soon expire) and some states exempt racehorses from their sales taxes. Other states own the racetracks.”
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“”The obvious solution here is also the simplest: Just stop,” Shachtman wrote. “Let the sport stand on its own and dwindle to whatever size its fan base supports. Instead, state legislatures keep funneling money to it.””
“Reuters reported this week that as a result of Trump’s tariffs, Ford Motor Co. will raise prices on three of its models by as much as $2,000 apiece. Days earlier, the company said it expected the tariffs to reduce annual earnings by $1.5 billion, even after making efforts to avoid U.S. import duties.
Rivian, which makes luxury electric vehicles from a single plant in Illinois, also announced this week that it expected to deliver fewer vehicles and spend more money this year as a result of the tariffs.
Then on Thursday, The New York Times reported that Toyota “predicted a $1.3 billion hit from President Trump’s tariffs in April and May alone.”
In a March executive order, Trump slapped a tariff of 25 percent on all imported automobiles, as well as automotive parts like engines, transmissions, and electrical components. The only exception was for those covered under the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), in which case the tariff only applied to the portion of the vehicle’s value not “attributable to parts wholly obtained, produced entirely, or substantially transformed in the United States.””
“Donald Trump doesn’t think Americans deserve stuff. The right number of pencils for a family? Five. The right number of dolls for a little girl? Two, maybe three. His comments in recent interviews bear a striking similarity to those of left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), who in 2015 famously bemoaned that consumers have too many deodorant options.
How did Trump—who campaigned on a promise of reducing inflation—become so eager to have Americans pay more for everyday commodities? While Trump may have made overtures to reducing prices, he’s long supported the kinds of economic interventions most likely to lead to inflation. And if you believe that protectionism is the path to prosperity for everyday Americans, your definition of prosperity starts to change pretty quickly.”
“In 2023, the most recent year for which full data are available, the average U.S. tariff on British goods was 3.3 percent.
That means this “deal” charges American consumers a 10 percent baseline tax on goods that were previously taxed at 3.3 percent. That’s not a win for free trade or lower prices.”
“Thousands of unharvested tomatoes are being plowed over in South Florida in a sign of what is to come under President Donald Trump’s tariffs—or tariff threats—and immigration policies. Reporting by Miami’s local Fox affiliate, WVSN, revealed that farmers are cutting their losses and letting crops go to waste due to increased picking and packing costs.
“You can’t even afford to pick them right now,” Heather Moehling, president of Miami-Dade County Farm Bureau, told WVSN. “Between the cost of labor and the inputs that goes in, it’s more cost-effective for farmers to just plow them right now.””
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“Even though the tariffs on Mexican imports never took effect for goods compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, including U.S. tomatoes, the threat of tariffs alone was enough to disrupt the U.S. market, DiMare told WVSN.”
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“While Trump is touting his recent deals with the United Kingdom and China as examples of how his trade policies are working, the Florida tomato industry serves as a real-world reminder that unpredictable policies can have far-reaching and unintended consequences on Americans’ livelihoods. On some level, Trump knows this and has admitted that Americans will have to make do with less, despite being voted in to bring down the cost of living. The president’s attempts at centralized planning will continue to drive prices up, and Americans will be the ones paying the price.”
“Some people, including a former Trump administration official speaking to Politico, speculate that China’s threatened rare earth cut-off was more damaging to automakers and the defense industry than anyone’s letting on, and that China actually can log this one as a W; “China’s export restrictions to the United States worked. It created enough pain to compel the U.S. government to plead with the Chinese government to reverse course,” the official told Politico.”
“The first time he was president, Trump raised tariffs on steel. That helped American steelmakers. They hired 1,000 more workers. Yippee.
But more American companies make things out of steel. They were hurt. The result: America lost about 75,000 jobs.”
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“American industrial output is near an all-time high.
Unemployment, now at 4.2 percent, is much lower than it was when I grew up.
Politicians never learn. In 1930, at the start of what became the Great Depression, clueless legislators Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley got Congress to pass what became known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
“It deepened and lengthened the Depression,” writes the Foundation for Economic Education”
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“Trump says he’s making deals! He got China to reduce tariffs to 10 percent.
But China charged 8 percent before Trump raised tariffs during his first term.”
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“Some countries, in response to Trump’s moves, raised their tariffs. Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on $107 billion worth of U.S. goods.”
“the deal is a tidy illustration of how President Donald Trump has conducted his global trade war. With China, Trump hiked tariffs to astronomical levels while promising those taxes (which are paid by Americans) would unleash prosperity and create jobs. Then, the White House celebrated the agreement that reduced those tariffs as “the art of the deal.” They are literally doing the meme.
But the “deal” means that imports from China will be subjected to significantly higher tariffs than when Trump took office. Those tariffs will continue to be a serious economic burden for American businesses and consumers, and the threat of even higher tariffs remains—because the “deal” only pauses those tariffs for 90 days, and because Trump’s mercurial nature means no one can really be sure what is coming next.”
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“the remaining 30 percent tariff, which is stacked on top of preexisting tariffs from Trump’s first term, “will still make for an expensive back to school and holiday season for most Americans,” Lamar said in a statement. “If freight rates spike due to the tariff-induced shipping disruptions—which will take months to unwind—we could see costs and prices creep up even further.””
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“both America and China are still worse off than they were a few months ago. Trump has used constitutionally dubious economic powers to raise and then lower tariffs, creating huge costs and even greater uncertainty.
Rather than praising the president for backing down from an insane position, as the White House believes Americans should do, the proper response to Trump’s latest tariff maneuvers is the same as it has always been: Congress must take away his tariff powers.”