this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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I'm not sure what other system is even conceivably possible in the general case. There's no straightforward universal relationship between tariffs paid by businesses and prices paid by the customers of those businesses.
I think the best system would be not to allow tariffs to be illegally implemented in the first place. But I realize that's asking a lot.
Hindsight is 20/20
I dream of having a functional government. I know everywhere has issues, but rule by EO from a wannabe dictator is tiring.
Sounds very unAmerican.
How about, instead, all tariffs money paid go directly to rich, land-owning white men?
Now that's closer to the American that I know.
We could at least not have taxpayers foot the bill for businesses to get free money.
There were some businesses passing the fees on directly to the end consumer via tariff implementation fees, but unless you have something like that itemized on an invoice, I believe you would be correct.
A business that passed 100% of the tariffs on to consumers via higher prices could still be worse off after getting a refund than it would have been if there never had been tariffs, if demand is elastic enough, so I'm not sure even that sort of data could resolve the question of who deserves what.
Take the total tariff income, divide it by the number of people in the country, and send out the checks.
It's the ONLY legitimate way to handle it.
That sounds fair in theory, but would not hold up as soon as the first person felt slighted and challenged those terms in court.
Let them. It's better than "nobody will let it be fair so we won't even try."
From a fairness point of view, for non essential goods, if you paid higher prices with the tariffs you would also have paid it without the tariffs, so you weren't really harmed by it.
Essential and non-essential are almost meaningless distinctions for most goods people use on a daily basis. I could LIVE on beans and water. Do I NEED toothpaste? Aspirin? How much am I allowed to enjoy something before it's a non-essential good?
People paid more for something because they were forced to, and it wasn't for any economically necessary reason, and the cause was illegal, making it tantamount to theft, and refunds to companies equivalent to receiving stolen goods.
Nitpicking the necessity of the good is a cheap excuse to do nothing, not a gotcha.
If you paid the higher value with tariffs you would pay it any way. And if everyone was willing to pay the higher price then it would already have been higher. That's how capitalism works. No CEO will charge less unless they think it will increase profit through volume.
Companies that increased prices because of tariffs probably lost customers in the process.
How about a check to taxpayers rather than a handout to businesses who had already marked up and profited from the sales anyway?
do you have proof every buisness did that?
How about lowering prices? Do companies have a straightforward way to do that?
The system would be not having a lunatic who implements tariffs at a whim and based purely on insider speculation and temper tantrums.
It would at least be a start.