Tax windfalls are not wealth: debunking a myth

There was hardly any enthusiasm online, even by right-wing accounts I follow, about the Canadian tariffs. Tariffs were tried in 2025, and it’s clear they failed on all counts: they didn’t create jobs, but at the same time, they created significant disruptions for small businesses. Large businesses such as Walmart and Target have enough pricing power and passed costs to consumers. It’s a losing issue, and reflected in the polls. You can see there has been zero polling pump for Trump after the latest round of Canadian tariffs: A common argument is that tariffs raise government revenue. But what good does that do when the national debt keeps going up, and no one is getting any of that extra revenue back, anyway. Or any revenue is negated by inflation or retaliatory tariffs. It’s not a “left vs right” issue: There’s no free lunch, as it’s said. Moreover, the extra “revenue” was refunded when the Supreme Court in 2026 eventually overruled the bulk of the tariffs. Meanwhile, companies…