The Trump Tariffs Turn Out To Be A Reverse Robin Hood Corporate Scam

The following is part of a post by Tim Dickinson at The Contrarian:

On “Liberation Day” in April 2025, Donald Trump imposed a massive set of tariffs on imported goods from around the world. The federal government then collected those funds — raking in ten upon tens of billions of dollars — for nearly a year, until the Supreme Court ruled that the president had unconstitutionally usurped Congress’s taxation powers.

As a result, the federal government has now begun the process of refunding about $166 billion in illegal tax revenue — payable to the corporations that originally handed over the money to the U.S. Treasury.

But did these corporations actually pay the tax? Or, after all, was it you and me?

In truth, the fat tax-rebate checks from the IRS will be going to corporations that already passed those costs on to shoppers in the form of tariff-bloated prices. American consumers paid the premium, but Treasury’s refunds will be going to huge companies. Ford announced it expects a $1.5 billion payback; General Motors anticipates a $500 million return. Both companies will reportedly be using the cash to boost their earnings.

Whether by incompetence or dark design, Trump’s illegal tariffs have worked like a reverse-Robin Hood scheme, on steroids. The pockets of the poor and middle classes were picked — during an affordability crisis, no less. And, following a detour through the IRS, that cash is now topping off the coffers of multinational corporations for whom the economy is already delivering record profits.

The economic ins and outs of tariffs, or import taxes, can be confusing at the best of times. And Donald Trump has added to that confusion with a constant stream of lies. To hear the addled president tell it, foreign countries pay the bulk of tariffs. But that is not true: A study by the New York Fed shows that foreign exporters absorbed only a small fraction of the costs of Trump’s tariffs. Instead, roughly 90 percent of the costs were paid by Americans.

An independent study by the Kiel Institute, a leading European economic think tank, pegs the cost paid by Americans even higher, at 96 percent. The report, titled “America’s Own Goal,” also illuminates how the costs of Trump’s tariffs, though initially paid by importers, are “ultimately” passed through to consumers via higher prices. The net effect of Trump’s tariffs, the study described, was to “transfer wealthfrom American consumers to the U.S. Treasury.”

In other words, American consumers bore the costs of Trump’s tariffs. The corporate importers were just the middleman. And yet, those same corporations are now in line to pocket the massive rebates from the Treasury, leaving consumers all the poorer.

To be plain: This isn’t a little bit of money around the edges. According to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, the Trump tariff burden per household over the last year was about $1,700 — or more than the cost of one month’s groceries for a family of four.

Could States Bypass The Supreme Court And Get Rid Of Citizens United?

 

It has generally be thought that only the Supreme Court could get rid of its Citizens United decision (which allowed corporations to donate huge amounts of dollars to political campaigns). But Robert Reich tells us there might be another way. He writes:

Several of you responded to my “Sunday thought” yesterday by saying that the first step out of the mess we’re in is to get rid of the Supreme Court’s bonkers Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of 2010, which held that corporations are people — entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the rest of us. 

Corporate political spending was growing before Citizens United, but the decision opened the floodgates to the unlimited super PAC spending and undisclosed dark money we suffer from today.

Between 2008 and 2024, reported “independent” expenditures by outside groups exploded by more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion. Unreported money also skyrocketed, with dark money groups spending millions influencing the 2024 election.

Most people I talk with assume that the only way to stop corporate and dark money in American politics is either to wait for the Supreme Court to undo Citizens United (we could wait a very long time) or amend the U.S. Constitution (this is extraordinarily difficult).

But there’s another way! I want to tell you about it because there’s a good chance it will work. 

It will be on the ballot next November in Montana. Maybe you can get it on the ballot in your state, too. 

Here’s the thing: Individual states — either through their legislators or their citizens wielding ballot initiatives — have the authority to limit corporate political activity and dark money spending, because they determine what powers corporations have.

In American law, corporations are creatures of state laws. For more than two centuries, the power to define their form, limits, and privilege has belonged only to the states.

In fact, corporations have no powers at all until a state government grants them some. In the 1819 Supreme Court case Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Chief Justice John Marshall established that:

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence….The objects for which a corporation is created are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country; and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and, in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant.”

States don’t have to grant corporations the power to spend in politics. In fact, they could decide not to give corporations that power. 

This isn’t about corporate rights, as the Supreme Court determined in Citizens United. It’s about corporate powers. 

When a state exercises its authority to define corporations as entities without the power to spend in politics, it will no longer be relevant whether corporations have a right to spend in politics — because without the power to do so, the right to do so has no meaning.

Delaware’s corporation code already declines to grant private foundations the power to spend in elections.

Importantly, a state that no longer grants its corporations the power to spend in elections also denies that power to corporations chartered in the other 49 states, if they wish to do business in that state. 

All a state would need to do is enact a law with a provision something like this:

“Every corporation operating under the laws of this state has all the corporate powers it held previously, except that nothing in this statute grants or recognizes any power to engage in election activity or ballot-issue activity.”

Sound farfetched? Not at all. 

In Montana, local organizers have drafted and submitted a constitutional initiative for voters to consider in 2026 — the first step in a movement built to spread nationwide. It would decline to grant to all corporations the power to spend in elections.

Called the Transparent Election Initiative, it wouldn’t overturn Citizens United — it would negate the consequences of Citizens United. (Click on the link and you’ll get the details.)

The argument is laid out in a paper that the Center for American Progress published several weeks ago. (Kudos to CAP and the paper’s author, Tom Moore, a senior fellow at CAP who previously served as counsel and chief of staff to a longtime member of the Federal Election Commission.)

Note to governors and state legislators: The Citizens United decision is enormously unpopular. Some 75 percent of Americans disapprove of it. But most of your governors and state legislators haven’t realized that you have the authority to make Citizens United irrelevant. My recommendation to you: Use that authority to rid the nation of Citizens United. 

Hopefully, Montanans will lead the way.

Public's View Of Both Capitalism And Big Business Fall

 

The charts above are from the Gallup Poll -- done between August 1st and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,094 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Voters Oppose More Tax Cuts For The Rich And Corporations

The chart above is from a Hart Research Poll -- done between February 12th and 16th of a nationwide sample of 1,011  U.S. voters.

Corporations Are Using Illegal Tactics To Bust Unions (& Getting Away With It)

This is from the Economic Policy Institute.

 

Why Aren't Democrats Talking More About Corporate Greed?

The following is part of an excellent post by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

At the same time Democrats and progressives are justifiably enraged at Trump’s gonzo Cabinet picks, they’re all but mute about corporate America’s continued siphoning of economic gains to the top. 

Yet this siphoning has created the stagnant wages and insecure jobs that helped propel Trump into the presidency and give Republicans control over both chambers of Congress. 

Trump at least gave workers an explanation for what’s happened to them — although it was a lie: It isn’t undocumented immigrants or the “deep state” or transgender kids or any other Trump bogeyman.

 

It’s corporate greed. 

The most recent example: On Friday, GM announced it was laying off 1,000 workers. These layoffs followed another round of GM layoffs in August, which saw 1,500 jobs cut. The cuts affected both salaried and hourly staff, including some United Auto Workers members.

Most of the workers being laid off Friday were notified via email early Friday morning. Some had been working for GM for over thirty years. 

GM says it has no choice. It must cut costs. 

This is what we hear again and again from corporate America. We’ll be hearing even more of this as Artificial Intelligence takes over white-collar as well as blue-collar jobs.

No choice? 

GM is on track for making record profits this year, surpassing its 2022 record profit of $14.5 billion. In the third quarter of 2024 alone, GM made $3.4 billion. That’s a $200 million increase from the same period last year.

GM CEO Mary Barra’s compensation for 2024 is $27.8 million. This includes a base salary of $2.1 million, stock awards of $14.6 million, stock option awards valued at $4.9 million, an “incentive plan” compensation (as if she needed more incentive) of $5.3 million, other payment of $997,392, and perks (personal travel, security, financial counseling, company vehicles, and an executive health plan) valued at $389,005.

The ratio of Barra’s compensation to that of the typical GM employee is estimated to be 303-to-1.

 

In June, GM announced $6 billion in stock buybacks. This means $6 billion of GM’s record profits will be used to purchase its own shares of stock — thereby boosting share prices (and the portion of Barra’s compensation in stock grants and options) simply because fewer shares of GM stock will be in circulation. 

Keep in mind that the richest 1 percent of American hold over half of the value of all shares of stock held by Americans, and the richest 10 percent hold 92 percent. 

So, in fact, GM’s savings from axing 1,000 jobs will be transferred into the pockets of wealthy Americans (including GM’s CEO). 

Why aren’t Democrats up in arms about this?

It’s important to rail against Trump’s appointments. But unless we attack the sources of the outrage Trump has tapped into, working Americans will continue to go along with whatever Trump and his lapdogs want to do.