15% Tariff

I would quickly like to clarify that 15% is a number that is high enough to have an effect, but low enough to not be a shock to our economy. The percentage itself isn't relevant. I will refute my opponent's arguments next and then offer more of my own. --"Your statement that corporations are outsourcing jobs because they can find cheaper labor elsewhere is incorrect"-- America IS losing an alarming rate of jobs due to cheaper labor elsewhere. A large portion of these are in manufacturing. ---. http://www.aflcio.org... --"Generally, U. S. corporations make things in foreign countries so that they can sell them in those same countries, and so FDI flows to richer countries because there's a larger market for selling goods. " -- American companies that build factories overseas in order to capture foreign markets would be unaffected by a tariff since they would build and sell in the same country. So I fail to see how they are relevant to this debate. --"Yes, some goods are being produced in 3rd world countries instead of the U. S. But why is this a bad thing"-- It is a bad thing because we are losing jobs. It is a very, very bad thing because U. S. manufacturing has a much wider impact than just on economics. During the American Revolution America had a very hard time getting the necessary amounts of weapons, powder, and shot; not to mention clothes because there wasn't a very strong textile industry in America. America had been a colony of Great Britain. America shipped her unfinished goods to the mother country and Great Britain sold them back to us as finished products. If we lose our manufacturing sector, we are delegating ourselves to being a "colony of the world. " More examples of this include the Civil War. The South was an agrarian society and the North was a manufacturing society. It was for this reason that the South lost. Also, when the Japanese hit us at Pearl Harbor their navy and air force were far superior to ours. If it hadn't been for our massive manufacturing sector America would not have been able to recover to win the war. It was because of our manufacturing that the Japanese worried about "awakening the sleeping giant. " --"we specialize in high paying high-tech and service jobs"-- The link I provided also shows that many 'white collar' jobs are going overseas as well. If a factory is overseas then it only makes sense that the management and other administrative jobs necessary to run the plant would go with it. --"This tariff would also hurt lower and middle class families by forcing them to pay higher prices for goods. " -- First of all, many of these 'lower and middle class families' that you speak of are the ones that are losing jobs to begin with. I think that they would rather have their jobs and pay slightly higher prices for some basic goods, instead of losing their jobs and seeing prices go lower. A tariff would help keep their jobs here. Many corporations around the world employ workers who live in abysmal conditions. Is this the state you want America's middle and lower class to live in just to compete for their jobs? Also, the Federal Government would be gaining revenues from the tariff. This would allow them to decrease other taxes, further helping these families. (this is how Bismarck built the powerful German nation) --"For example, even our currently fairly low tariffs transferred $11.8 billion from American consumers to farmers, amounting to an annual 'food tax' of about $100 per household. -- While I understand that this was just one example you could have picked, $100 annually is not that much money. In fact, it's a very small amount. But on the subject of food. .. In 1996, 1,450 Americans came down with a severe sicknesses caused by a water parasite. They got this parasite from Guatemalan raspberries. Not long afterwards, 175 children got hepatitis A from Mexican strawberries. The strawberries were mis-labeled that they had come from the United States. By the way, Cyclospora, the Guatemalan parasite, can disable a person for thirty days or more. It is serious. Rod Leonard, executive director of Community Nutrition Institute, said that "Americans are becoming a bunch of guinea pigs, and there's no possible way under current trade agreements for these risks to be controlled". Higher tariffs could solve this problem. While I admit that these examples deal with low numbers of people, there are many more that happen all the time. Reuters news service summarizes a report by the 'Institute of Medicine of the U. S. Academy of Sciences' by saying that "the surge in global trade and travel. .. is creating a huge health threat in the United States. " Consider that many of the fruits and vegetables we eat in the U. S. are coming from countries where we are not even supposed to drink the water. Also, these countries' governments do not hold these farmers accountable for the pesticides they use, or the sanitation practices they observe. Thanks, but I'll take my $100 annual tax. :) Tariffs would fix this problem. As you have noted low tariffs already cause more produce to be bought in the U. S. (--"For example, even our currently fairly low tariffs transferred $11.8 billion from American consumers to farmers, amounting to an annual 'food tax' of about $100 per household"--) so higher tariffs would cause more food to be grown and bought in the U. S. under our safety standards. --"A tariff on steel could save jobs in steel plants, because our steel manufacturers would face less competition. " -- Just because there is a tariff does not mean that competition has to decrease. There are plenty of domestic companies. Also, you pointed out earlier that U. S. corporations build plants in other countries in order to sell to that country's consumers. A tariff would in no way stop foreign companies from building plants here and competing. A tariff only stops foreign companies (or American ones for that matter) from building and employing overseas, and selling in the U. S. Foreign companies would be welcome to compete here, as long as they built their factories and employed here. --"Enacting a tariff will cause other countries to enact retaliatory tariffs on U. S. goods"-- So what? If our companies wish to compete for other countries' markets they could build plants in other countries as well. Also, America has the largest consuming culture on the earth. I don't think it would be that big of an issue for domestic corporations to find buyers here. And since jobs would be returning due to the tariff, there would be more buyers than ever before, and prices could not be that high because, as I've shown, tariffs do not automatically mean no competition. Also, it has been historically proved in this country time and again that prices and wages are a cycle. When one goes up, the other is soon to follow. (consider minimum wage as an example) I have more points for a tariff but I have run out of room, so I will save it for the next round. note: I highly recommend Patrick J. Buchanan's book "The Great Betrayal" for anyone who is interested in this subject.