> Brilliant editorial on tariffs, national debt.

Trump wowed his faithful with promises of enormous riches. DOGE checks.  Tariff dividend checks.  Savings accounts for kids. Big payments to farmers. Improbable new battleships. Tax cuts.

Whatever anyone wanted under their Christmas tree, Trump’s tariffs promised to provide.

Now, the promises won’t be delivered, and Americans are left to repay an additional $300 billion in unexpected debt.

A good first question might be: “Where did the money go?”

As always, the government paid its bills and sold bonds to cover any deficit. There is no hoard of cash collected from the tariffs. The money was commingled in the U.S. Treasury and is already long gone.

The bond holders will demand their money so the government will have to issue more bonds. This is unfortunate, becasue the U.S. is very close to the end of its line of credit with the world. Falling credit ratings will increase  interest costs.

There will be a lot of overhead in trying to get the illegal tariff money back to the people who paid it. Lawyers will be involved. Not traffic ticket lawyers, but Ivy League lawyers. Well paid Supreme Court-type lawyers, with well-groomed assistants who have well-groomed assistants. Walmart might get a big chunk of cash, but Susie Smith who used her wages from an after-school job to buy a gift for her mother probably will not

As a nation, we have survived some demanding circumstances. Soldiers marching without shoes in the snow at Valley Forge. But this is a big enough mess to destroy Trump and his supporters. (b)We should start impeaching them as quickly as possible.(/b)

We’ll have to rebuild our country. Hard work. Frugality. But we can rebuild it better, stronger, more just. We need to use the midterms to begin clearing away the debris.