President Trump Reveals Tariff Revenue On Track To Eventually Replace The Income Tax

In a huge moment during his State of the Union (SOTU) address that flew under the radar, given some of his theatrics and the Democrat messaging disaster of staying seated when asked to stand if they represented Americans before illegal aliens, along with Ilhan Omar losing it and screaming, President Trump revealed that tariffs are on track to eventually replace the income tax.

In fact, the president boldly repeated an argument he has made before, which is that a thriving economy and his relatively high tariffs will bring in enough revenue that the much-despised personal income tax can be done away with. He said that, under such a system, our government will be “paid for by foreign countries,” as tariff revenues will eventually “replace the modern-day system of income tax.”

As background, until about World War I, the tariff was used to fund the government. There was no income tax until 1913, and even then it was quite low until the Great War, with the operations of the government generally being paid for by tariff revenues and other forms of indirect taxation that are far less intrusive than the income tax.

President Trump indicated that he wants to return to such a state of things during his SOTU address, and he has indicated as much before as well. During his speech on Tuesday, February 24, the president began his bit on tariffs and the income tax by noting, “Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Adding to that, he argued that those countries that are now anteing up and paying huge amounts of tariff revenue to the Treasury had been ripping off America before now. He said, “They were ripping us off so badly, you all know that, everybody knows it, Democrats know it, they just don’t want to say it.”

Still not done with that point, the president noted that he and those countries had struck new, fair deals. “And yet these countries are now happy, and so are we. We made deals, the deals are all done, and they’re happy. They’re not making money like they used to, but we’re making a lot of money,” he said.

And, after berating the Supreme Court for its ridiculous tariff ruling, the president said,“But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made, knowing that the legal power that I, as President, have to make a new deal — could be far worse for them.”

He added, “Therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful [path] that we have negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement.” He then continued, “Many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs. I wouldn’t have been able to settle them without.”

Building on that with his remark about the income tax, the president then said, “And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs paid for by foreign countries will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.”

After pausing for applause to fill the chamber, the president concluded his point by saying, “Moving forward, factories, jobs, investment, and trillions and trillions of dollars will continue pouring into the United States of America, because we finally have a president who puts America first.”

Watch him here:

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Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video

President Trump Reveals Tariff Revenue on Track to Eventually Replace the Income Tax