President Donald Trump suggested eliminating all federal income taxes in order to fund the government solely through tariffs on foreign imports Saturday in Nevada.
Trump held a rally in Las Vegas where he discussed his campaign promise to eliminate federal taxes on tips for service workers. Nevada helped carry him to victory last November and is laden with hospitality jobs.
While Trump spoke at length about implementing his “no taxes on tips” proposal, someone in the crowd yelled out for him to suspend all federal taxes. Trump responded by saying the US should entertain the idea.
“She said no tax on anything,” Trump said. “How about just no taxes, period? We could do that.” The president then fondly recalled a time without a federal income tax and floated funding the US through tariffs:
You know, if the tariffs worked out, like a thing like that could happen if you want to know the truth. Years ago, 1872, 1913, we didn’t have an income tax. What we had is tariffs where foreign countries came in, and they stole our jobs, they stole our companies, they stole our product, they ripped off. And, you know, they used to do numbers.
And then we went to tariff, a tariff system. And the tariff system made so much money. It was when we were the richest from 1870 to 1930. Then we came in with the brilliantly came in with an income tax. So we don’t want others to pay. Let’s have our people pay. And then you had the depression in 1928, 1929, I call it 1929. It was a bad time. But, you know, you didn’t have tariffs, and you had tariffs that ended in 1913. But it was the richest our country ever was.
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
