The Hidden Tariff

What is the real albatross around the US economy's neck?
It is not free trade, per se, or the lack of tariffs on foreign goods, but rather it is more the internal tariff on domestic goods and services.
It is employment tax. The annoying little tax that increases the cost of labor in the US by 10% - 15%.
Asking the American worker to compete in a vastly overstocked global labor market is one thing, asking him to do it at a 15% handicap is too much to ask any one.
So what do the politicians propose doing about it? Well it generally ranges from the outright insanity of raising the tax, to the bizarre enigma of pointless semantic shuffling.
The fact is the tax does not need to be manipulated, massaged or reduced, it simply needs to be eliminated.
Now one could debate whether or not the government should be in the dole business at all, but presuming the program should exist, it makes much more sense to fund it by spreading the cost equally between foreign and domestic goods, with a graduated consumption tax.
This would not only give the American manufacturer an equal shot at his own market, but also be more competitive abroad, not to mention allowing solvency as we move from a production to consumption weighted economy.It is not free trade, per se, or the lack of tariffs on foreign goods, but rather it is more the internal tariff on domestic goods and services. It is employment tax. The annoying little tax that increases the cost of labor in the US by 10% - 15%.