Trump's National Sales Tax Has an Exemption Clause

They're no longer even pretending to hide it.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris described former President Donald Trump's tariff proposals as "a sales tax on the American people."

"You don't just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board, and that's part of the problem with Donald Trump.

I say this in all sincerity, he's just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues," Harris said."And one must be serious and have a plan, and a real plan that's not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally, but actually putting the thought into what will be the return on the investment, what will be the economic impact on everyday people."

You see the problem. Harris was both logical and truthful, but her message will likely fly over the heads of those constantly fed propaganda by the right-wing ecosystem.

Instead, she should have made Americans feel the full impact of Trump's proposals. She should have explained his motives and warned the nation: Trump and his supporters are set to destroy the country. They nearly wrecked it in 2020, and if they regain power in 2024, they will finish the job.

But the Dems missed the emotional boat to reach Truth Island, and here we are listening to Donald Trump talk about taking America back to 1870. Harris was right to point out that Trump's approach lacks seriousness, but the deeper problem is that his tariff proposals are more than just a misguided economic policy—they're a deliberate move to distract the country.

I was reminded of this detached, deceptive way of thinking when a friend of mine—a brilliant, hyper-logical person—admitted that he often forms conclusions first and then searches for evidence to support them. In personal matters, this might just be a minor flaw, but in positions of power, this kind of thinking can lead to disastrous consequences, wrecking entire economies and ruining millions of lives.

Donald Trump and his backers are preparing to wreck the nation's economy once and for all, using any available evidence to support their grand theft. Just two days ago, Trump posted on Truth Social: "The Tariffs, and Tariffs alone, created this vast wealth for our country. Then we switched over to income tax. We were never so wealthy as during this period. Tariffs will pay off our debt and MAKE AMERICA WEALTHY AGAIN!"

He also shared a post from billionaire Marc Andreessen.

According to Andresson, “This is a really remarkable chart of tariffs as % of total federal revenue. The Second Industrial Revolution, perhaps the most fertile era for technology development and deployment in human history, was 1870-1914”.

Both men are pitching a vision of America from a century ago as the model we need to rebuild. But that America was a world light years behind today. No internet. No phones. People were still hauling goods in carts, and horse-drawn carriages were the norm. The U.S. wasn’t exporting cutting-edge technology; it was exporting commodities—wheat, corn, cotton. It was a supplier of raw materials to the world, especially Europe.

Back then, the U.S. exported more than it imported, maintaining a positive trade balance of $507 million. Protectionism wasn’t just a strategy for economic growth; it helped fuel industrialization and boosted the government’s coffers. But let’s be clear: trying to drag America back to that past, especially under the guise of protectionism, is not only impractical—it’s dangerous. These men are pitching a retrograde fantasy, ignoring the reality of globalized trade and the technological revolution that has reshaped the world.

To rebuild an economy on such outdated principles is to condemn it to irrelevance. They want to prevent people from recognizing that America's true strength today lies in its ability to innovate, lead in technology, and stay connected to a rapidly evolving global economy. Bringing back the past won't make America wealthy—it will only make us weaker and more isolated.

The U.S. trade deficit is now over a trillion dollars annually, and even with two trillion in exports, many of those goods include products imported—it's all interwoven. If tariffs are applied carelessly, they’ll be passed on to U.S. consumers, effectively becoming a hidden sales tax that raises prices across the board.

Why on earth are Donald Trump and his billionaire friends doubling down on this path to drag the United States back to the 18th century? Raising tariffs and cutting taxes—it's almost nonsensical. The world will laugh, but who cares? The brainwashed MAGA voters will continue talking about how great the country was in 1900, something they know nothing about, all while screaming for more tax cuts.

Who do you think this benefits?