Congressman Jared Golden is currently proposing a 10% tariff on all imports. In his Jan. 16 newsletter, he says that at a time when “failed free trade agreements have hollowed out American industries and stagnated wages” we need to “reorient our economy from one focused on cheap goods and consumption to one centered on production and innovation.”

But I feel a bit accused, honestly. I mean, regular working people are just trying to fit our lives into our ever-tightening budgets. And I can’t help noticing that the average CEO earns over 200 times what their average worker does. Perhaps a reckless working class desire for cheap foreign goods is not actually what is hollowing out the manufacturing industry?

The most immediate impacts of tariffs are higher prices and inflation. Given that we are already living with “stagnated wages,” this is not the time to pile more obstacles into people’s hard-fought path to make ends meet.

And we have actually just lived through two American experiments into how to grow the manufacturing industry.

Remember the 2018 tariffs? The resulting trade wars devastated our local lobster industry. It took years to recover. And the nationwide outcome was a net loss in manufacturing and employment as whole. That is what we typically refer to as failure. And this lesson should be really close to our hearts here in Maine, because we paid an especially steep price to learn it.

Right now, on the other hand, manufacturing really is growing in response to supply-side investments like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. We are currently experiencing one of the strongest labor markets in U.S. history —  because these initiatives are currently working.

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Why reach back through history to a failed roadmap that brought severe hardship on our hard-working waterfront, when a successful roadmap is unfolding right in front of our eyes?

Of course, I do know that Donald Trump considers “tariff” to be the most beautiful word in the dictionary. So this initiative is really well-timed to gain favor with an incoming administration. But I just don’t think that’s a good enough reason to pile more hardship onto the backs of an already overburdened working class, all for the sake of an experiment that just recently failed — and failed spectacularly right here in Maine.

I would rather see efforts focused on pushing through a reasonable tax level on the ultra-wealthy and corporations, and investing those revenues into manufacturing industry growth. Don’t keep tariffing us further into the most extreme wealth gap in history while blaming us for wanting cheap goods.

So I absolutely don’t support Rep. Golden’s 10% tariff. Blanket tariffs will not generate more American production. They will absolutely raise prices on everything we need for everyday life. The resulting trade wars will cause rapid and potentially devastating hardship to our local industries — again. We just lived through that. And today, we have a better roadmap to real manufacturing growth that is not built on the backs of the overburdened working class.

Tariffs disproportionately affect low-income and working class families, while the wealthy and corporations remain minimally affected or even benefit. The last thing we need right now is any more legislation that benefits the wealthy by exploiting the daily sacrifice of the working class.

 

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