Nice essay but SS taxes are not loans to the Govt. SS taxes are taxes that fund Govt payments according to a set of rules. When necessary, the rules can change and payments adjusted accordingly.

Federal Income Tax
 

Federal income tax is a tax. Social security is a different deduction unless you have a job where the state ( ie. Ohio teachers) has their own pension investment program. Unfortunately, you even pay a tax on the Social Security you receive. So we are paying taxes on our tax?

SS is a tax.

Yes, you pay taxes on up to 85% of the retirement income provided by SS depending on how much additional income you have.

That's not a viable solution. First of all, the raw materials for many things cannot be sourced all in the US and it's not cost effective to import these raw materials here and then find people to work for minimum wage to produce the item at a competitive price. Factories here won't operate at a loss just to be patriotic.

It's simply cheaper and more efficient to have many things produced offshore. Otherwise, the price of almost EVERYTHING will go up. That will really put our grandchildren in a bad position with everything costing more and wages not going up at all.

I think some people in the US that aren't well travelled don't understand this at all. We don't have even 5% of the population to open all of these theoretical factories to make all of this stuff. Plus 99% of this stuff is being made by people making lower wages. These are the jobs we DON'T want in the US!

Figure you spent $105 on that charger delivered. It is still cheaper than buying overpriced American junk. The $15 UPS tax collection fee seems a little high but collecting taxes for the State ain't free.

There is a giant wage disparity between many countries and the United States and companies in this country will take full advantage of it. To believe these companies because of 25% tariff will come rushing back to the U.S. is a dream. Even at a 25% rate it still more profitable to farm out the work offshore. Also, these companies are not going suffer financially from any of the tariffs, because they will pass it on to the consumer.
An example is Apple, do you really believe if you put a 25% tariff on their phones, they are going to start making them here.

So your solution is ship the jobs to China so you save $15?

For the most part, that ship has already sailed.

Tariffs on manufactured goods *might* be explained as a means to bring jobs back to the US. If we can tax the foreign-made goods to the point they are more expensive than American-made then perhaps consumers will choose to buy American. To be successful this requires there to be American-made goods to buy and it depends on the American manufacturer to not see this as an opportunity to increase their prices.

Tariffs on parts and components (integrated chips, steel, aluminum, etc) will increase the cost to manufacture items in America and therefore increase the price of American-made goods. Sure, it *might* be possible to rebuild the US steel industry but not quickly and the price of the steel produced will still be higher than the pre-tariff price (otherwise we would already be making that steel here). So again, prices to Americans will go up.

Is America willing to pay more to support American products, American jobs, and the American economy? Not voluntarily and not happily. Americans will notice the higher prices and the resulting higher inflation numbers.

Made in Japan
 

Tariffs did fix a problem we had in the 60s when everything seemed to be labeled, “Made in Japan”.