If the US is going to eliminate income taxes or fund all the things that the administration is proposing, the revenue stream seems to be going in the wrong direction. What’s more is that reliance on tariffs for tax revenue offers a very obvious escape route: if you can produce something with inputs sourced solely in the US, you don’t pay tariffs at all. As that option broadens, tax revenue will logically go down, not up.
The release brings the total revenue collected in 2025 to $264.05 billion. It’s a historically high annual total — but also the second straight monthly decline after Trump dialed back key tariffs last November.
The peak for the year was October’s monthly haul of $31.35 billion. The first decline then came in November, with $30.76 billion in customs duties collected that month.
Americans are paying $1 thousand each in import duties? That isn’t going to end well.
You don’t understand statistics too well, do you? No, I can assure you that I am not personally … personally … paying anywhere near that in import duties.
The math seems to add up. The duties are directly paid by the importers — almost all corporations — but evenutally passed on to the consumers.
If the federal government can’t be funded entirely out of tariffs and excise taxes, as the Founders intended, then it’s too big and needs to be starved for funding.
Treasury Statement also showed that the US ran a deficit of $602 billion between October and December — the first three months of the fiscal year — including a deficit of $145 billion in December that far outstripped the tariff revenues despite Trump’s frequent claims that tariffs are balancing the budget.
First, it’s important to note that Yahoo doesn’t put Trump’s supposed words in quotations … so they are making up words to put in his mouth.
Second, tariffs ARE “balancing” the budget. -ing … an ACTIVE form of the verb balance. Trump didn’t say “balanced” as in finished/done … he said tariffs are CONTRIBUTING to the reduction of the debt.
Third, $264 Billion was collected in tariffs in 2025. So … whatever the deficit was BEFORE Trump’s tariffs … the deficit has been reduced by $264 Billion.
Fourth, Yahoo is telling you the glass is half empty. Trump is telling you he’s filling it faster than ever before. So which are you? A negative TDS Nancy-boy … or a positive thinker?
Between the outright fraud as well as the amount of money filtered through the network of NGOs that all take a cut, it appears that balancing the budget would have a lot less to do with taxes/tariffs than it does with controlling the expenditure side of the sheet.
It’s always been the expenditure side.
I have a perfectly civil and clean (language) post here pending moderation. Why? I said nothing rude, off-topic, or controversial. Odd.