GOP lawmakers “are far from sold” on Donald Trump’s plan to use “steep new tariffs to pay for tax cuts next year,” according to a Tuesday Semafor report.
“I donâ€t like tariffs, Number One,” Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told the news outlet. “I think the consumer pays them. So theyâ€re regressive. Theyâ€re a sales tax, basically.”
The Kentucky lawmaker added, “‘I kind of doubt’ tariffs would make it into a GOP tax bill,” though Paul told Semafor that he’s still open to the president-elect’s plan.
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Semafor notes:
Trumpâ€s broad tariffs could bring in trillions of dollars to help extend the tax cuts and potentially pay for some of the many new tax promises he made during the campaign. But such sweeping tariffs also would raise consumer prices while possibly failing to raise the revenue Republicans would need in order to vote for new levies on foreign goods.
“I donâ€t want to do tariffs just to raise revenue,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) emphasized. “If President Trump must do tariffs, it should be to equal the playing field for American businesses. But I donâ€t think just using them just to be revenue raisers is necessarily a strategy we would employ.”
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) added, “‘You gotta show me the numbers. Right now, tariffs are a very small sliver” of the broader revenue picture.
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Semafor’s full report is available at this link.
