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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (236492)	3/12/2002 2:34:54 AM
From: craig crawford	Respond to of 769667

>> you said, "tariffs only raise prices if you buy foreign." That is false << please cut me a little slack i have had about 50 messages or more about trade in my inbox, from different threads. i am trying to get to them all and keep it all straight. in other posts i have argued that tariffs can raise prices and that is not a bad thing, so you are correct that what i said was not true. what i meant to say is that if you don't buy foreign you won't have to pay the duty (tax) that a tariff imposes. so it is only a tax increase on the consumer if you buy foreign, not a price increase. prices may go higher even if you are not paying the duty. as i have said before, tariffs oftentimes seek to correct artificially low prices so a return to a fair market price may be considered a price increase, but i wouldn't consider that a bad thing. rising steel prices to rescue steel industry before it is totally wiped out to foreign competition is fine with me. i believe we need a healthy steel industry in the united states. furthermore, while an import tariff can result in higher prices, it doesn't automatically have to result in higher prices, and higher prices may even be a good thing. for example i would be in favor of a tariff on imported oil. 1) that would stimulate domestic exploration and drilling 2) lessen our dependance on opec 3) consumers would have an economic incentive to conserve 3) if oil prices rose enough there would be an incentive to provide more fuel efficiency and alternative energies