On February 20, the US Supreme Court ruled part of US president Donald Trump’s crazy-quilt tariff scheme illegal in its particulars. Specifically, SCOTUS noticed that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not provide the authorization Trump claims for imposing tariffs as he pleases, in the amounts he pleases, on products from whatever country he pleases, when doing so pleases him.

The court did not, however, order refunds of the stolen money to the American importers that money was stolen from (and who passed the costs of the theft on to American consumers in the form of higher prices). It remanded the case back to lower courts so far as relief and restitution are concerned.

Tariff victims had already begun preemptively suing for the restitution they’re owed even before the Supreme Court ruling, and since that ruling other companies, including FedEx, have also initiated court proceedings.

The victims shouldn’t HAVE to sue.  President Trump SHOULD just order the US Treasury to refund the money immediately. That would be the honest thing to do.

Naturally, Trump disagrees. Instead of doing the right and honest thing, he’s throwing a tantrum over being held to the law and pursuing a new, just as legally suspect, tariff powers claim so that he can keep stealing money from American businesses and consumers … at least until the courts nix that scam too.

Here’s the thing, though: Refunding the money wouldn’t just be honest policy, it would be smart politics.

At the moment, the coming midterm elections look like an impending bloodbath for the Republican Party. The Democrats seem to be sitting pretty in their quest to become the majority party in the US House, and to have a decent shot at taking the Senate as well. Trump has already announced his fear of a third impeachment when … if … that happens.

Can he turn things around? It may not seem likely, but eight months is a long time in politics … and eight months of economic recovery would certainly help his party, and him, out.

Step one: Cut those refund checks and get that money back into the hands of the companies that directly paid the tariffs (sadly, in our partially cash-based economy, it just isn’t feasible to identify and reimburse individual consumers).

Step two: Watch those companies use the pseudo-windfall to get competitive again with lower prices and capital investments toward more, and more efficient, production. More jobs, more sales, more economic activity.

Step three: Republican candidates take credit for the improving situation, while hoping everyone forgets that what we’re recovering FROM is a Republican president’s economic idiocy and policy lawlessness.

Voters do tend to forget, and those who don’t forget might be inclined to forgive — if their wallets start getting fatter instead of thinner.

Six months of good economic news could make a big difference at the polls.

Or Trump can keep (family-friendly version) Fooling Around and Finding Out. Which, with this as with  many other things, seems to be his habitual inclination.

I guess we’ll see.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“[The International Emergency Economic Powers Act] does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

That’s the single really important sentence from the US Supreme Court’s February 20 ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump.

Trump’s ongoing tariff tantrums, starting with his “Liberation Day” schedule of “reciprocal” tariffs, were illegal under the law in question, and under the US Constitution, which gives Congress, and only Congress, the power to levy taxes.

Every dime taken by the US government via those tariffs is stolen money. Which is true of all taxes, but in this case, the money was stolen even according to the very political and legal systems which usually pretend otherwise.

There are four aspects of the court’s ruling which should be, but aren’t surprising.

One is that the court took months to finally just come out and say what everyone, including Trump, knew from the very beginning. The court granted certiorari for the case in September of last year. How long should it take nine justices to conclude that words mean things, and that the words in the Constitution and the IEEPA mean what they mean rather than meaning something else? This was an epic exercise in foot-dragging.

Unfortunately, foot-dragging is business as usual where SCOTUS is concerned.

A second is that the opinion wasn’t unanimous. Three  justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanagh — flushed their shared  supposed “originalism” down the toilet and then jumped in after it, holding in dissent that words don’t mean things, that history doesn’t matter, and that the powers of the presidency actually derive from the film Where The Buffalo Roam, in which Peter Boyle wanders around wearing a Nixon mask and bellowing “I’m the President of the United States and I can do anything I want.”

Unfortunately, Supreme Court justices round-filing their supposed principles in service to their political masters’ agendas is nothing new either.

The third should-be-but-ain’t surprising  aspect of the ruling is that SCOTUS kicked the can down (that is, BACK down) the road when it came to ordering a remedy.

In cases — civil or criminal — concerning theft, the most obvious remedy is restitution. It’s time for the US Treasury to start cutting refund checks to all the businesses it stole those tariff revenues from. But rather than simply so ordering, the court remanded the case back to lower courts, which will no doubt engage in protracted “struggle” over how to — and even whether — to deliver justice to the victims.

The fourth, and least surprising, outcome? After venting his spleen at the Supreme Court for daring to defy him by nixing his illegal tariff scheme, Trump immediately went to work on a new version. His next caper  will no doubt be as illegal as the previous one, and the courts will no doubt take their time addressing that one too.

The court’s ruling is correct as far as it goes, but don’t hold your breath waiting for relief, let alone recompense. To misquote the old Miller Lite commercial: Tastes great, less fulfilling.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Last November, New York City voters chose — from a uniformly awful candidate menu — “democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani for mayor. They’re already starting to experience, and may even learn from, the consequences of that choice.

“Democracy,” HL Mencken wrote, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Unfortunately, everyone else gets it good and hard, too.

The coalition that elected Mamdani consisted mainly of middle- and upper-income voters.

You know, the people who hail an Uber instead of taking the subway, and order their restaurant food via DoorDash instead of rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi at local delis, pizzerias, and Chinese take-out joints.

Mamdani lagged his main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, among lower-income voters.

You know, the folks who build those sandwiches, bake those pizzas, and stir-fry those veggies. The people who stand in line to save a buck rather than pay delivery fees atop food costs. And, of course, the people who drive for Uber and deliver for DoorDash.

In other words, the “workers” Mamdani and his ilk claim to “support.”

That “support” takes the form of all-out war on the “gig economy.”

The premise of socialism is “worker control of the means of production,” and the gig economy is far and away the most successful experiment in human history when it comes to achieving that.

Gig workers own their tools. Gig workers set their own hours. Gig workers choose who they work for, where they work, and what kind of work they do. Gig workers even set their own salaries by accepting the individual tasks that meet their pay requirements and rejecting those that don’t.

Mamdani and friends hate that worker control with a passion. To them, worker happiness and welfare only matter to the extent that they can claim credit for, and gain power from, that happiness and welfare.

It drives them crazy to see workers not punching campaign donors’ time clocks, not paying dues to politically connected “organized labor” groups, working for amounts they consider acceptable instead of for government-set “minimum wages,” and maybe even lightening their own tax burdens by working for cash or engaging in some creative accounting.

For the Zohran Mamdanis of the world, “democratic socialism” is really just a nicer-sounding term for socialism’s Mussolinist — that is, fascist — variant: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

So the new NYC regime is hell-bent on making it harder for gig workers to get work, get paid, get tipped … get BY, with everything from “minimum wage” enforcement to controlling how apps treat tipping. Because if anyone, anywhere, somehow manages to make a living without Mamdani’s permission, why, that’s “exploitation.”

No wonder they didn’t vote for him!

Mamdani’s “middle and upper class” supporters are getting it good and hard, too.

It turns out that his “democratic socialist” antics drive up prices for on-call transportation and food/grocery delivery.

Who, other than anyone with a basic grasp of economics, could have predicted THAT?

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY