Link: https://mishtalk.com/economics/lutnick-says-tariffs-can-eliminate-the-irs-and-balance-the-budget/
By “External Revenue Service” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick means tariffs. Click on the above link for a video cheered on by Fox News, watched 317,000 times, and liked by 686 fools. To balance the budget with tariffs, the administration would need to bring in $7 trillion. To replace individual and corporate income taxes, tariffs would need to bring in $3.1 trillion. Tariffs brought in about $30 billion for the full year in 2024. We have an annual trade deficit of $918 billion. Listen carefully. Team Trump proposes $918 billion in “reciprocal tariffs” to make the trade deficit go away. Team Trump also proposes collecting $7 trillion in tariffs to balance the budget and get rid of the IRS. I would love to hear a detailed explanation of exactly how that works. Since it doesn’t, let’s make some adjustments.