What were the Democratic and Republican positions on the issue of tarriffs?

Answer 1

There's really no difference between the two, in most cases the position is on an individual level due to campaign support from third parties.

The thing about it is that tarriffs add to the cost of foreign goods to encourage purchase of domestic goods so that local vendors (local at least to our country, not necessarily next door or anything) have trade routed through them. This of course helps our economy and increases our GDP (forgive me if a couple terms are a little off. it's been two years since I've taken economics).

As our nation is currently facing a trade deficit (sp?)(meaning we import a LOT more than we export which in turn means all of our cash flow is away from us) all of our officials should encourage, at least to some level, higher tarriffs so that we can slowly but surely level that deficit out.

However, there are some moderate differences in the basic ideology of the two parties.

Democrats favor a larger national government with psuedo socialistic practices (welfare, national healthcare, social security, etc.) and as such play a larger role in deciding where tarriffs are placed. From a government standpoint, they want to increase tarriffs not necessarily to increase competition in the trade market even though that is a big factor, but to help pay for all those luxuries they so thoroughly believe in.

Repulicans on the other hand believe in a smaller national government with focuses on military and business. As they prefer a smaller role in government, they will likely not take as strong a stance to help pay for the luxuries that Democrats and others keep into effect (and many Americans have come to rely on. Does your grandmother live almost exclusively on her Social Security? I know many do.), but they will do it to encourage better trade opportunities in the United States.

In either situation we encourage tarriffs, but the question is of how high they should be and in what areas.

There is another aspect driving the Republicans to really confuse the issue in recent years. With the prospect and actuality of Oursourcing of jobs, the same businesses that we are trying to protect with high tarriffs are actually being hurt by those tarriffs when they try to ship their finished product back into the States as it then falls under international trade.

Really want to throw the issue out of whack? If you set tarriffs too high to encourage free trade, then it's hardly free trade at all because it gives the American companies an unfair advantage over the foreign countries.

Basically, both parties favor tarriffs for different reasons, but thanks to many factors, both personal and ideological, there are no clear division lines as far as who believes in what and to what extent they believe it.

Answer 2

In which election? Depending on the candidates, you could have a wide range of answers.

In the most recent election, Bush was generally anti-tarriff and Kerry is somewhat pro-tarriff.