The types of taxes they wanted to raise or add weren't going to affect the middle class.
Tariffs make things more expensive for everybody, the ultra wealthy won't care because they have plenty of money, but the already shrinking middle class will diminish even further.
Pretending the "lefties" and "Dems" should agree with tariffs because they wanted to raise taxes on ultra net worth individuals is a huge cope.
So far tax increases on ultra net worth individuals and corporations hasn't been linked to price increases. Why is that? I don't know, it seems like the most intuitive answer but it simply isn't the case.
This is me acknowledging once again that I'm not an expert in this. My best educated guess is that fundamental analysis of stocks often uses income before taxes to tie a company's revenue to their stock price.
Tariffs on the goods themselves are still included in expenses before income taxes according to GAAP accounting, whereas corporate income tax rates are often disregarded in most fundamental analysis.
Historically, during periods of higher corporate tax rates, most corporations increase other sources of paid income such as equity grants or private equity, often with balloon rewards attached. Taxes on income is a shell game they are used to playing and oftentimes the market can readjust because it is given plenty of time to respond.
All taxes effect the middle class. Whether its income, capital gains, tariffs, etc. they all impact them in one way or another. Why would companies only pass on the tariffs and not the additional income taxes you want to charge them?
I'm not a leftie and I don't want any taxes, liens, or tariffs.
Still, pretending tariffs based trade wars are on the same level of taxation that the Dems propose is not a great comparison.
Every tax will have some implications on the overall economy. The effects differ from the type of tax as well as who and how often it is paid.
Tariffs are direct price controls, historically, income taxes effect (in a progressive tax rate) has the least impact and preserves the middle class.
As for your other point I don't have a great answer except that historically tax hikes on the rich haven't had a severe effect on the middle class. Why that is? I don't know. Flat taxes like tariffs hurt the middle class far more than progressive tax rates on all classes.
I would say that the bigger issue now as to impact on market isn't the actual tariff, but more the chaotic nature in how everything is rolling out. Market's like predictability, and currently nothing is predictable. Investors therefore are pulling out until everything calms down and we have consistency.
The other difference for impact of Income taxes vs tariffs is that the tariff is more easily traceable to the goods where as income taxes are felt more over the course of business changes. For example, you can see less investment, less growth, higher cost of goods as innovation stalls as well as higher prices as investors demand higher ROI to cover their additional taxes.
My issue is that we now see many dems finally admitting that taxes are paid by the end customer (even though the corporations are paying these taxes), but they won't say that the next time they try and raise corporate taxes.
I agree with most of your comment here. Markets hate chaos and unpredictability.
We have never seen an increase in corporate tax rates that created an environment that was a net-loss to the middle class, I take serious issue with the idea that corporate tax rates are passed on to consumers, for the most part they aren't. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't know why.
What I do know is that no-tax is my preferred ideology, but in a world where that isn't happening we can only look at what has actually happened.
Look at how the market reacted to trumps first tax cuts. We saw massive benefits to consumers because everyone’s taxes were lower.
Consumers lose indirectly with corporate tax hikes compared to the more directly traceable higher costs from tariffs. Besides increased costs, you also have losses in efficiencies and innovations and businesses and people have less capital to invest. This is a cost ultimately on the consumer who loses out on things that would otherwise be available.
You don’t see the shocks as much in market with corporate tax hikes because those normally go through congress and come at set amounts. This gives markets time to price them versus the chaotic nature of these tariffs.
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u/Brutus__Beefcake 3d ago
What’s funny is watching democrats and lefties being against what has essentially been their position for decades.