Trump’s tariffs got called illegal and still tried to mug your paycheck

Tariffs are the only tax where politicians swear it’s “patriotic” while your wallet screams in 4K.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger used the Democratic SOTU response to say Trump’s tariff plan is a “massive tax hike” — even after the Supreme Court smacked parts of it down. Which is a fun little constitutional thriller where the twist ending is you paying more for socks.

The pitch from Team Tariff is always the same: “We’re protecting American workers.”

Spanberger’s argument is simple and annoyingly correct: tariffs don’t magically come out of China’s feelings. Importers pay them, companies pass them along, and your paycheck gets carjacked one grocery run at a time.

She also hammered the power grab piece — the idea that the executive branch can just slap taxes on stuff and dare Congress to do something besides post a statement and leave early for a fundraiser. The Court’s strike-down didn’t kill the instinct; it just made everyone lawyer up and try again with different paperwork.

Meanwhile, the people who can actually eat tariff costs are the same ones who always can: giant corporations with pricing power, lobbyists on speed dial, and the kind of margins that let them call it “supply chain adjustments” while they quietly pad profits.

Tariffs aren’t a culture war. They’re a receipt.