Kyle Handley

You guys should go ask an actual academic economist what they think of Tyler Cowen, who is ostensibly supposed to be an economist. The answer might surprise you.

“No playbook” is not accurate. CBP routinely issues duty refunds when tariffs are withdrawn, reduced, or ruled unlawful. The government knows who paid and under which tariff lines. The scale here is small compared to normal IRS refund operations.

Will we ever know what the Saturday morning Truth Social post was about?

Sen. Moreno says he wants to codify Trump’s existing tariffs (not emergency or Sec. 122) through a reconciliation bill, which would need 50 votes. He says that revenue could be used in a sweeping bill to make tax cuts on tips, seniors, OT permanent

Asked Speaker Johnson if Trump admin should refund $134B in tariff proceeds after SCOTUS ruling. “I don't think so. The White House is going to sort that out and we have to give them the time and space to do it. This is an unprecedented event, so there's no playbook to follow”

The US wants to put a modest tariff ~10-15% to create a preference for domestically made stuff by making foreign stuff, incl domestic stuff made with foreign input, more expensive. Out of natsec reasons, the US wants to make Chinese made stuff esp less attractive. Bc production of most things these days is multinational and involve input from many different places at various stages, putting in such policies will cause production less efficient, there to be less trade btwn the US and the RoW, and things to be generally a bit more expensive than they would be otherwise, individual goods supply chain elasticities notwithstanding. Overall, when the dust settles, we’ll see the US trade a bit less, produce a bit more at home, collect some tariff revenues, and overall global economic activity to be a bit less than otherwise. I remember growing up I used to say stuff like “oh cars from Germany are more expensive bc they were tariffed.” So people accepted buying locally produced shittier but cheaper cars. That’s it. We’ll just have a bit more of that. What you gonna do. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Hassett: “The Fed’s independence extends to its research. It and it alone must decide what research to conduct to further its mission. The authors of this study are all excellent economists. We differ strongly on this particular paper. But I did not mean to impugn their excellent reputations and regret my choice of words.”