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Assuming for a moment that the purpose of tariffs is to shift consumer spending away from foreign imports and towards domesticly manufactured products,
Shouldn't you want retailers to break-out the tariff cost into a seperate legible line item?
A story broke this morning that Amazon was going to start labeling products with the tariff charged on each item to make the price changes legible to the consumer. From the perspective of a protectionist economic policy, this is a good thing. It makes it unignorably clear which items are made in China and which items are made in America. It also shows the direct monetary incentive for you the consumer to but the Made in America item over the Made in China item.
From the perspective of whatever the hell the Trump administration is trying to do, this is a disaster. I understand that governments would prefer the populace not be particularly mindful of how much money they pay in taxes, but it is another thing alltogether to hear this articulated by the press secretary as something that they think makes the administration look good to the public. The official line from the MAGA infuencer types on Twitter is that retailers are doing this as a distraction from the fact that they sell cheap slop from Asian sweatshops, but this is actually highlighting the fact that they sell cheap slop from Asian sweatshops.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these,Hanania was right again.
I think the problem is that this is the first time they've done it. California specifically has messed with shipping and importing a lot recently. Things like the Advanced Clean Truck Act (and similar bills) as well as increased port fees.
But they never added on a "California compliance charge". So this would be seen as a direct protest because it's Trump.
Plenty of restaurants in SF have an "SF living wage" or "employee benefits" line item or similar.
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Even still, there have been other direct protests in this vein before, so I don't see what the big deal is. In 2008 Allegheny County instituted a "poured drink tax" of 10% on alcohol sold in bars and restaurants to cover a funding gap for public transit. It was passed by county council and signed into law by county executive Dan Onorato over the objections of the local bar and restaurant owners association. All the bars and restaurants that weren't chains immediately added an "Onorato Tax" line item to their receipts, in addition to putting signs in their windows protesting "Dan Dan the Tax Man". Onorato defended the tax but didn't seem to take any of the protests personally, and never suggested they should stop doing it. And the proposals here aren't saying "Trump Tariff" or anything similar.All this demonstrates is the inability of republicans to handle any criticism.
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