In an interview on Power & Politics, (David Paterson, Ontario’s representative in Washington) told host David Cochrane that the Canadians and Americans had a 90-minute meeting and the first half-hour was “a master class” from Lutnick in breaking down the U.S. position on tariffs.
The focus of the U.S. government is dealing with its yearly deficit in federal spending, Paterson said. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the federal government ran a $1.83 trillion US deficit in the 2024 fiscal year.
There are three ways the U.S. government is working to cut down that deficit, Paterson added.
The first is a major budget resolution that calls for billions of dollars in tax cuts, and the second is slashing the size of government through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The third is tariffs, which are meant to be a new revenue source and attract investment into the United States.
It’s honestly a little reassuring to here that the reason for these tariffs is “We want to tax the ever-loving shit out of our citizens so we can give money to billionaires, but we don’t want to call it a tax.”
At least that means that it wasn’t meant to be an act of betrayal and pre-text to war with Canada. I mean, it still was an act of betrayal creating massive hardship and permanently damaging our relationship. But the idea of a Russian/Ukraine remake happening along the 49th parallel seems less likely than it did.
There are three ways the U.S. government is working to cut down that deficit, Paterson added.
The first is a major budget resolution that calls for billions of dollars in tax cuts
Any good financial planner will tell you if you want to get out of debt, step one is decreasing your income
@Yoga @HellsBelle That must explain why I failed as a billionaire.
Tax cuts for billionaires to balance the budget? What morons actually believe that?
The politicians don’t believe it, they just have to say it. The people voting for it see themselves as also getting a tax cut, which they want.
The funny thing is the tax cuts will only help those making over $360k/yr.
Oh is that actually the case this time around? I remember the 2017 cuts by revenue mostly affected the top whatever but the poor still had a tax cut, it’s just the amount of money saved was, by definition, significantly less than it was for the top earners.
I believe the way it worked was - the middle and lower class tax cuts had a built-in sunset and the upper class tax cuts were permanent. That way it looked like everyone got a cut, but really it was just a temporary relief for the poors and a real transfer of wealth to the upper echelons.
I don’t believe they’re engaging in such pageantry this time. But I’m not an American, maybe someone will correct me.
You’re right on all counts. The last 4 years they’ve finally perfected the propaganda bubble they started after the impeachment of Nixon, so they don’t have to hide anything anymore. They don’t have use loopholes, or hidden time bombs, or anything. They can straight up say the quiet part out loud, and put on paper exactly what they want, and their media will just bald-face lie about it to the public, and there are no consequences.
Hell, they released their whole plan (Project 2025) with nothing redacted or disguised in euphemism or anything, a full year before the election, so everyone had plenty of time to see the full, real picture, and they still won quite handily. I don’t know how we recover from this.
What a bunch of shit bags. The tarrifs violate the same trade agreement the cheeto signed a few years ago. If he doesn’t like it, he can request a review in 2026. Until then, he should live up to his agreements. His actions make it abundantly clear any agreement with him isn’t worth shit.
And using annexation threats as trade leverage to pass his tax cuts for the rich is beyond despicable.
It’s literally a way to raise taxes on poor Americans without using the word tax.
Billionaires aren’t importing significant amounts of physical goods from Canada, Mexico, or China.
For poor people, a good chunk of what they buy is coming from or partially made in one of those locations.
“There are three ways the U.S. government is working to cut down that deficit, Paterson added. The first is a major budget resolution that calls for billions of dollars in tax cuts”
…ah, yes, nothing balanced the budget like siphoning the federal coffers into the 1%ers’ pockets.
“Tariffs are now a global policy of the United States,” said David Paterson, Ontario’s representative in Washington. “And this is a historic change to global trading patterns, and [the Americans are] very aware of that.”
Paterson said the American plan is to impose tariffs by sector across countries all around the world on April 2. From there, the countries that get along with the U.S. the best will be “first in line” to adjust or mitigate the tariffs.
[Ambassador Kirsten] Hillman described the meeting as “concrete” and appreciated the conversations, but she noted that nothing changed in terms of the ongoing trade war between Canada and the U.S.
That’s what I understood the strategy to be back in 2015 when it was first being floated.
Why did it take the government so long to figure it out? Because it’s so badly thought out that it couldn’t possibly have been the plan?
Why did it take the government so long to figure it out?
If you mean the Canadian government, it probably has to do with the multiple of false justifications that have been provided so far.
