Although it surely was not intended, Trump’s tariff plan may have opened the door for the Democrats to push for and win Medicare for All(M4A), a longstanding goal for progressives. It does this in two ways. First Trump was able slip by this massive tax scheme with almost no attention from the media. Democrats should demand Trump treatment when they push M4A.

The second reason is that Trump’s tariffs show that it is politically acceptable to tax the middle-class. Trump’s tariff scheme is a tax increase for middle-income households of several thousand dollars annually. If that is politically acceptable, then surely much smaller tax increases that may be needed to cover M4A would surely be politically feasible.

On the first point, Trump did talk about tariffs in his campaign, but there was very little written about how big his tariffs would likely be and how large a hit they would be to middle and moderate-income households. For this reason, most people, including those who follow the news closely, were shocked by the size of Trump’s tariffs. This is why the stock market crashed immediately after Trump’s tariff speech. If investors had expected anything like the tariffs Trump is putting in place, the market would have already priced in the impact of the tariffs.

To be clear,........

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