Tariffs? In This Economy? Good Luck With That

If the idea of levying opaque taxes on businesses and households in the form of tariffs was harmful even in the best of times, what about when the economy is rapidly weakening? Stop reading now if horror stories aren’t your thing. This week brought a slew of important data proving the cracks in the economy are getting both wider and deeper. Two items stuck out as especially troubling.

The first was a Commerce Department report showing consumer spending fell in the first half of the year. We’ve seen this only once in the last 18 years not counting when the pandemic hit, and that was in early 2010 amid fears of a double-dip recession as a recovery from the global financial crisis was far from assured. This is notable because consumer spending accounts for around two-thirds of the economy.