A tariff, for reasons described in earlier posts, generally makes the country that imposes it poorer. So do other taxes. Does it cost us more to raise a million dollars of revenue from a tariff than from an income tax, a sales tax, or some other alternative' What does that mean, what does a tax cost beyond the money handed over' In the ideal economy1 something is produced if and only it is worth at least as much to the person who gets it as it costs the producer to produce it. If something that costs ten dollars to produce goes to someone who value it at only nine dollars, that is a net loss of a dollar ' someone pays the cost of production, someone gets the value of consumption, and between them they are a dollar worse off than if it had never been produced. If something costs ten dollars to produce and someone who values it at eleven dollars does not get it, that again is a loss of one dollar relative to the ideal economic outcome. In the ideal economy, anything that is produced...
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