For much (most?) of our history federal income came exclusively from tariffs, and the President is very fond of evoking that era. It would not be unprecedented for it to happen again.

Can’t argue with the moderation given the slant of this community (I landed here from “All”), but I continue to maintain I’ve been posting in good faith.

Have a blessed day.

Trump’s been pretty loud about the External Revenue Service eventually supplanting the IRS.

If you don’t think he’s serious about tariffs, you aren’t paying attention.

Rumblings from Trumpland (and the odd post from Musk) point to the long-term goal being a vastly simplified tax code and commensurately smaller IRS.

Biden seemed content to keep hiring more IRS agents.

Is it reasonable to grow the enforcement bureaucracy ad infinitum in order to keep pace with an exponentially more complicated tax code, or might we be better off simplifying things a little?

whales

You mean the big shots with their undeclared tips and their Venmo payments?

Apple-FBI encryption dispute

My recollection was erroneous, as I can’t (easily) find evidence of them rolling over. But the devices in question still got unlocked, so in the end it didn’t matter whether Apple (openly or surreptitiously) cooperated.

Is anybody really crying for an IRS employee?

It’s a good thing Musk wasn’t elected.

Troubling precedent, but I expect no one used this anyways. Anybody who needs this would be smart enough to know not to trust so proprietary a device and service.

Given how readily Apple has rolled over for law enforcement in the past loudly Apple has opposed working with law enforcement in the past, only for devices to be magically unlocked anyways, this is (probably) just security theater.