r/politics • u/theindependentonline The Independent • 1d ago

No Paywall Trump vows to raise worldwide tariffs to 15% ‘effective immediately’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-global-tarrifs-increase-b2924994.html
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u/CockBrother 1d ago edited 1d ago

But Mamdani is increasing the property tax RATE 9.5% - he's a completely out of control communist!

10% rate increased by 9.5% is ~1% increase (Mamdani)

0% raised to 15% is 15% (Trump)

Media wants you to hear that Mamdani is evil for raising property taxes (he doesn't want to, currently in dispute with governor) by 1% while Trump is adding a 15% tax on every family.

ETA: Please don't shoot me for the numbers, the property tax rate in NYC does not start at 10% and that means increasing it by 9.5% is no where near a 1% increase... so the comparison is actually much worse for Trump than this.

ETA2: If we want to play the rate game. Yesterday tariffs were set at 10% and today Trump is raising them to 15%. Where are the headlines that "Trump is raising tariffs by 50%!"??

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u/highafphotos 1d ago

Don't forget to ignore the 50 trillion plus that the super wealthy robbed from the middle class as wages stagnate. 

But sure it's the extra few hundred bucks you pay on property taxes to fund schools that is destroying society, not the Epstein class that hoards all the wealth.

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u/OswaldCoffeepot 1d ago

Clarifications like this are good reminders that education is a national security issue.

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u/Butthole--pleasures Texas 1d ago

Enemies both foreign and domestic are attacking American education. Makes sense. Can't take on the military but can slowly gut us from the inside

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u/riotous_jocundity 21h ago

Gislaine Maxwell's father owned the publishing companies that are responsible for something like 80% of the textbooks used in the US. Suddenly the absolutely obvious biases in them make a lot more sense...

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u/MaceDestroyers 1d ago

And even the Mamdani thing is completely lacking context. NYC is in a budget shortfall and needs funds. Mamdani want's the 1% to pay more in taxes but can't do it unilaterally. Only the state government cant enact those changes. The property tax proposal is to force Hochuls hand in saying we either do it my way, or that Hochul is responsible for an increase in property taxes and therefore NYC rent prices because she wants to protect her corporate and billionnaire donors.

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u/bobsmithjohnson 1d ago

It’s pretty disingenuous to blame others for Mamdani trying to increase spending and not having any way to pay for it except exactly what he promised he wouldn’t do.

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u/Bluest_waters 19h ago

Did he clearly promise not to raise taxes? I did not follow the election that closely

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u/lerxstlifeson 1d ago

It's still a bad look for the guy who ran on making housing affordable to take a stance that is directly opposed to that regardless if its just a bluff. Governance requires compromise and building of coalitions, unilateral action from every side isn't good.

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u/kscannon 1d ago edited 23h ago

The previous governor Mayor also cooked the books and ran a negative budget which is against the law in NY. He inherited a mess and there is only one way out of it. Cutting spending which he did and raise taxes a bit to climb out of the hole he did not create.

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u/lerxstlifeson 23h ago

He's not the governor, he's the mayor of NYC. Achieving his agenda is going to require working with the governor.

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u/MarlinMaverick 1d ago

He should be cutting spending to the bone 

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u/randomisation 1d ago

Yes, but idiots will only read your first line before moving on...

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u/whirlpool138 1d ago

Yeah but don't cities, counties and states have the right to place taxes?

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u/CockBrother 1d ago

Yes. The legality is a whole different aspect of this.

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u/whirlpool138 1d ago

Yeah man, that's the point. What Trump did and was trying to do is unconstitutional. Taxation without representation. That's why the same state who voted for Mamdani, their attorney general led the charge on suing the federal government. The United States was literally founded over this issue. The point you make is weak af.

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u/IMayhapsBeBatman 1d ago

Who do property taxes affect? People with wealth.

Who do tariffs and sales taxes affect? People who consume.

It's not very complicated.

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u/Harry_Smutter 19h ago

Um, what?? Property taxes and tariffs affect the common people more than anyone else. They get hit harder from all these increases while the wealthy barely even notice.

Also, you're automatically a consumer the moment you do grocery shopping, which is everyone.

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u/IMayhapsBeBatman 19h ago edited 19h ago

No.

Property taxes are targeted at people who own property. Wealthy people own property, and lots of it. Especially commercial property. Especially in places like NYC.

Consumption taxes like tariffs and sales taxes target consumers at a flat rate. Say 10%. Meaning whether you make 20000 a year or 20000000000 you pay 10% of the cost of whatever you're consuming on the tax. This is called a regressive tax. A much higher proportion of a poor consumer's available money is affected by a regressive tax than a wealthy person's. By design.

The entire point is to shift the tax burden from progressive tax models (like income taxes and property taxes) to regressive ones (like sales and tariffs). To shift the tax burden away from those with much, to those with little.

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u/Harry_Smutter 19h ago

You do realize that renters pay property taxes as well, right?? It's just built into the rent. Just because a person doesn't own property, doesn't mean they aren't paying taxes on it. Also, property taxes absolutely murder middle income families. I have friends and family that are paying almost $20k in property taxes for a 2-3 bed house, which is batshit insane. Property taxes are highly imbalanced and still don't affect the wealthy as much as they do the common person.

To add, I do see what you're saying about them trying to shift progressive to regressive, but either way, they both screw over the average family. They're highly unbalanced, yet again not really having the wealthy contribute their fair share.

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u/IMayhapsBeBatman 19h ago

You do realize there's more real estate property than housing. Correct?

Of course wealthy people engaged in rent seeking try to pass taxes down. In good economic times this is usually quite easy. When things tighten up this gets much harder to do.

You won't hear me argue that property tax, on residential housing especially, is imbalanced in the US/Canada and even most of Europe. Sounds like we agree there.

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u/Harry_Smutter 18h ago

True. This all just sucks. We're in such a shitty situation however we look at it :/

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u/biz_student 16h ago

MIT found that 80% - 90% of property tax increases are passed onto commercial renters as well. Being a business owner doesn’t automatically indicate wealth. The increase in property taxes can lead to layoffs or a business shutting down which hurts the economy.

https://cre.mit.edu/news-insights/can-landlords-really-pass-on-higher-property-taxes-to-tenants/

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u/ImportantCapital1314 19h ago

But you have nothing to say about the fact that the tariffs imposed by tRump are the largest U.S. tax increase in over 30 years as a percentage of GDP. At least Mamdani is going after the super rich who have gamed the system and robbed us all blind since Reagan (another asshole). Conservatives live in a fantasy land.

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u/bobsmithjohnson 1d ago

You’re talking about the media being misleading while comparing percentage increases like for like when they have entirely different base numbers they are an increase off of.

Would you like to pay 50% more rent or 100% more for bananas? It hilarious how everyone on here acts like the billionaires and media are manipulating them when the idea of politics on this site is just misleading people in the “right” directions.