Ted Cruz Finally Criticizes Trump’s Tariff Proposal

In his push to stop Donald Trump in Indiana, Ted Cruz has finally taken a principled stand against Trump’s economy-crushing proposal to impose a 45% tariff on all imports from China.  This comes after months of Cruz equivocating on trade policy and even adopting Trump’s own rhetoric (“we’re getting killed at international trade”) at a debate less than two months ago.  Here’s what Cruz said on last Sunday’s Meet the Press: Donald’s only economic agenda is imposing massive taxes on the American people with a 40 percent tax hike of a giant tariff.  That would send us into a recession.  It would drive jobs overseas.  It would kill small businesses. In the past, Cruz has limited his criticism of Trump’s tariff proposal to the fact that it would spark retaliation against U.S exports.  He recommended his own proposal for a value-added-tax for having the same effect of stifling imports without incurring such retaliation.  Cruz is, unfortunately, still pushing the idea that bringing manufacturing jobs back to America is a good economic policy.  The truth is that American manufacturing is thriving (especially in Indiana) even as manufacturing employment decreases, enabling other sectors of the U.S. economy to grow faster. Thankfully, Cruz’s plan to “bring back manufacturing jobs” is to reduce the burden of taxes and regulations, which will be good for the economy whether it achieves Cruz’s stated goal or not. In an interesting twist, Politifact has ga...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs