Repealing Outdated and Unilateral Tariff Authorities Act
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Rep. Schneider, Bradley Scott [D-IL-10]
ID: S001190
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Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the 119th Congress. Let's dissect this farce and get to the real diagnosis.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's title is a work of art – "Repealing Outdated and Unilateral Tariff Authorities Act." How noble. The sponsors want you to believe they're bravely repealing an outdated law, freeing America from the shackles of unilateral tariff authorities. In reality, this is just a cleverly crafted PR stunt.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill's sole purpose is to repeal Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1338). This section allows the President to impose tariffs unilaterally in certain circumstances. The sponsors claim this authority is outdated and needs to be repealed. How convenient.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved – politicians, lobbyists, and special interest groups. The bill's sponsors, Schneider et al., are likely beholden to industries or donors who stand to benefit from the repeal of Section 338. Perhaps they're tired of those pesky tariffs interfering with their profit margins?
**Potential Impact & Implications:** Let's not be naive – this bill has nothing to do with "repealing outdated" laws and everything to do with serving special interests. By repealing Section 338, Congress is essentially ceding its authority to the President, allowing them to impose tariffs without Congressional oversight. This is a classic case of "legislative abdication," where lawmakers surrender their power to the executive branch.
The real disease here is the corruption and cowardice that plagues our legislative system. Politicians are more concerned with appeasing donors and special interests than with serving the public good. This bill is just another symptom of a larger problem – the erosion of Congressional authority and the concentration of power in the executive branch.
In medical terms, this bill is akin to a patient self-medicating with snake oil. The sponsors think they're curing a problem, but they're actually making it worse. The American people are being sold a bill of goods, and they'll be left to suffer the consequences of this legislative malpractice.
Diagnosis: Terminal stupidity, with a side of corruption and cowardice. Prognosis: Poor.
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 802 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise response to four rounds of tariffs plus an attempted Phase One agreement. The Biden Administration has left the tariffs in place and is expanding them to pursue progressive policy goals. The first order of business for a new Administration that is focused on American workers and consumers is to repeal all tariffs enacted under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 196251 and Sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.52 The President can do this unilaterally, and Congress can do it through legislation. The second order of business requires Congress to pass legislation repealing Sections 232, 201, and 301. The U.S. Constitution places all taxing authority with Congress53 and none with the President. Congress used those provisions of law to delegate some of its taxing authority to the President because it was having trouble passing “clean” tariff legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. Unless and until this constitutional question about delegation is addressed, important reforms are available to the next Congress and the next President. Congress faced a problem of collective action in the 1960s and 1970s. As a whole, Members generally wanted to lower tariffs, but few individual Members were will- ing to remove tariffs that benefited special interests in their districts. Trade bills were invariably watered down through amendments and logrolling. The thinking was that the President, whose constituency is the entire nation, would be less prone to special-interest pleading than Members of Congress would be, so Congress del- egated some of its tariff-making authority to the President in 1962 and 1974 trade legislation. Delegating tariff-making might have worked in the short run, but in the long run, it was both constitutionally dubious and ripe for abuse. That came to pass in 2018. The Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, invoked in 2018 against Canada, Europe, and other allies on national security grounds, raised car prices by an aver- age of $250 per vehicle and gave America the world’s highest steel prices. They also harmed the construction, canned food and beverage, and other metal-us- ing industries. While this may have benefited the steel industry itself, each steel job saved cost an average of $650,000 per year that had been taken from elsewhere in the econo- my.54 That is no way to strengthen American manufacturing. The New York Federal Reserve estimated in 2019 that the Section 301 China tariffs cost the average house- hold $831 per year,55 a figure that has likely increased with inflation. The new tariffs have a clear record of failure—as conservative economists almost unanimously warned would be the case. Job number one for the next Administration is to return to sensible trade policies and eliminate the destruc- tive Trump–Biden tariffs. Strengthening American Manufacturing. The decline of American manu- facturing is a common political trope in both parties, typically invoked before a call for more government intervention. This narrative has several problems. One is that — 803 — Trade American manufacturing output is currently at an all-time high. The record was not set during World War II and not during the 1950s boom. Output did not peak when manufacturing employment peaked in 1979 or during the Reagan economic revival in the 1980s. It is actually higher now than it has ever been. American manufacturing is buoyant because each manufacturing worker’s pro- ductivity is also at an all-time high. The key to prosperity is doing more with less. The next President should ignore special interests and populist ideologues who want government to do the opposite through industrial policy, trade protectionism, and other failed progressive policies. It takes surprisingly few people to achieve America’s record-high manufac- turing output—currently about 13 million people out of a workforce of more than 160 million, compared to the 1979 peak of 19.5 million people out of a workforce of 104 million.56 Productivity growth has freed the time and talents of millions of people for other, additional uses. The belief that manufacturing has to shrink for services to grow is the zero- sum fallacy against which sensible economists often warn. It is anathema to the optimism, hope, and confidence that are the natural birthright of conservatives. Growing productivity enables more output of both manufacturing and services. That is why America continues to have sustained booms and record-setting real GDP despite the long-run decline in manufacturing employment. Economists distinguish between two types of growth: extensive and intensive. Extensive growth is the Soviet and Chinese model for manufacturing: If you have more people use more resources, they will create more output. Extensive growth is doing more with more; intensive growth is doing more with less. That is where America’s superpower lies. The story of American manufacturing is one of intensive growth dating back to our agricultural origins. Conservative leaders should draw on this history to position America for continued success. With intensive growth, it is not manufacturing or services; it is manufacturing and services. Retaliatory Tariffs. Raising tariffs on another country almost always invites retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. The latter tend to be directed at politically sen- sitive American exports. Retaliatory tariffs by both China and American allies in response to the 2018 steel tariffs were targeted primarily at American agriculture. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, those tariffs cost farmers $27 billion with losses concentrated particularly in heartland states.57 Retaliatory tariffs also targeted U.S. industries that were not protected by tar- iffs. Many imports become inputs into U.S. manufacturing. The motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson was already facing higher production costs as domestic steel producers raised their prices to accommodate the new steel tariff. A retaliatory tariff on its motorcycles imposed by the European Union further raised its prices and hurt its export business. Harm to such innocent bystanders was another unin- tended (though foreseen) consequence.
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.