Why is it that Democrats are absolutely certain that tariffs raise the price of goods, but can’t seem to figure out that corporate income taxes also raise prices? Are they that ignorant of how things work, or are they lying to us and hoping we’re too stupid to see for ourselves that what they’re saying makes no sense? I think there is some of both going on here.

First, let me say that both of these taxes lead to higher prices, but not to the extent that either side of the debate would have you believe. The calculation is far too complicated for anyone to do, as there are too many variables and the effects on each of them on others cannot be fully understood. The one thing that is certain is that both taxes affect consumer prices in the same way.

There is however one big difference between them. Corporate taxes make it less profitable for a company to remain in the country in which the tax is imposed, while tariffs make it more profitable to produce in the country imposing the tax. Corporate taxes cause companies to move out of the country, taking jobs and profits with them, while tariffs cause companies to move into the country bringing jobs and profits with them.

I’m not a fan of any kind of tax, but if you’re going to have them (and we must if we want a government), it makes sense to have taxes that have some benefit to offset the negative economic impact that all taxes have.

All taxes are, in the end, paid by individuals. Any tax collected from a corporation must be offset by increased prices, lower wages, and/or lower dividends to stockholders, which lowers stock value. All these hurt individual people. Because of that the real answer is not increased tax collections, but decreased government spending.

A good start would be to keep the tariffs and eliminate corporate income taxes. While we’re at it, let’s eliminate lots of job killing, expensive regulation. These measures would get the economy growing so fast that we might have a hard time keeping up, but that’s a good problem to have..

PAUL RINKER

Montoursville

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom