Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#801

Post by buffington » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

witrak wrote: post #796

mafuy wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A product can be both, according to the current US administration. DHL is not necessarily at fault here.

>A product can be both LOL... A tent is a single product. What about a car? Do you expect to pay separately for the aluminum in the motor and gearbox, as well as for the entire car?

If you'd kept reading the sentence, you wouldn't be asking the questions you're asking.

> A product can be both, according to the current US administration

The person you're responding to isn't trying to convince you that a tent is two things, they're telling you that the US government wants you to believe a tent is two things.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#802

Post by myrmidon » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 11:02 PM UTC

tt24 wrote: post #781

myrmidon wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to shift tax burden from very wealthy Americans onto average citizens, what do you hope to achieve with that? What is the purpose of taxation then, in your view? > I don’t think that wealth inequality is a problem I have a very hard time understanding this perspective. Wealth can already buy (directly or indirectly) all forms of property, political power and even legal outcomes. I see no real way to remed…

I don’t see it as “shifting” burden onto the middle class - it’s more about shifting the burden away from the upper class, who carry a disproportionate amount of the burden. Both wealthy Americans and the middle class consume approximately the same government resources, and it’s not fair that the upper class should have to shoulder the majority of the tax burden. > What is the purpose of taxation then, in your view?…

> it’s not fair that the upper class should have to shoulder the majority of the tax burden.

I don't know what the definition of "upper class" is to you, but from my view anyone that earns most of his income not by working himself but by others working for him in some form (capital gains, rent, employees, ...) draws wayyyyy outsized use from the state compared to an average citizen. Not only does the state provide enforcement, but also infrastructure, education for workers, a framework to solve disputes, ...

So those people should also pay morefor that privilege. Note especially how companies taking over the roles of a state is not really a thing anymore (company towns, providing education, solving disputes, internal paramilitary, etc): Everyone realizes they are getting a brilliant deal, and no one actually wants to take over those functions (despite lots of people whining about government inefficiency all day long).

All this is much more valueable and useful the bigger your whole money making enterprise is, obviously.

> I don’t agree with this claim. Bloomberg outspent his opponents to an absurd degree, which resulted in him losing by an embarrassing amount.

What is your claim? Media/campaign spending most obviously has a large effect on voting outcomes, because otherwise people wouldn't spend billions on it.

I'm not saying that by spending money you can literally win every election ever, my point is just that sufficient media spending alters voting outcomes most drastically. You don't even need to play the political circus yourself to get access (just consider Musk spending a good chunk and basically getting the DOGE thingy in return).

> I don’t agree that wealth inequality results in less opportunity for anyone.

In a very obvious way, wealth already buys you time, the most valuable opportunity cost for anyone-- time that an average person would need to spend breadwinning for themselves/family.

Education, business contacts, employees and machinery of all kinds are up for sale as well.

If wealth is stratified, the number and kinds of opportunities available to people will necessarily become much more different as well.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#803

Post by sgc » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 12:41 AM UTC

mft_ wrote: post #787

sgc wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how the root cause is always the opposition, never the perpetrator. Focusing on the Democrats (who are hot garbage) is such a wonderful way to keep attention focused anywhere but on the almost half the country still supporting a murderous cabal filled with people covering for a bunch of (other??) people who raped children to get pleasure from the sexual torture (yes, it's pretty clear from the Epstein files th…

Woah. 1) You seem to think I'm some sort of GOP-pedo-billionaire sympathiser; nothing could be further from the truth. I'll help you slam the prison door and throw away the key. 2) No-one mentioned Epstein in this part of the discussion until you did - I thoughts we were discussing tariffs. I was responding to someone saying that, in the context of the tariff mess , they blame the people who voted for Trump, and "the…

You made a choice to focus on one (less important) half of the equation, and that choice comes with consequences - including obfuscation of the actual perpetrators, who commit crimes against humanity. We have had years of this which enabled our current situation. I don't think it is the right choice to make.

I was not going to pretend to understand your motives via text - not enough information. So I was responding to the concrete effects of your comment whether intended or not, and not to your personal opinions. I was pointing out the other (more important) half that you failed to acknowledge. It's so horrible that just stating it makes it seem like I am 'triggered', when I was just just stating facts.

The conversation is not strictly about tariffs, that was just the starting point. Once it was expanded to Trump and Kamala and the election, the context was far larger and naturally everybody reading would reasonably understand this. You contributed to expanding the conversation, it is normal that discourse would follow from that.

In brief, I think we need to be quite careful to explicitly mention specific evils at this time, particularly because a major tactic of those perpetrating them is making a lot of noise to drown out focus on their crimes.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#804

Post by peebee67 » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 1:58 AM UTC

doom2 wrote: post #451

wat10000 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress needs to step up and take its power back from the executive. There was no good reason for the President to have this power in the first place. Why the hell do we have emergency powers to impose tariffs? Is there going to be a fleet of nuclear-armed bombers headed for the USA and the only way to stop them is to impose tariffs? It's ridiculous. Congress has been gradually handing their power over to the execut…

Just wait until the next Democratic president is elected. The current crop of Republicans will suddenly remember that Congress can exercise this power.

You must be young.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#805

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 3:09 AM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #777

Herring wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is a public good, therefore good education is socialist, and Americans are very hyper-individualist (aka antisocial). History suggests that Americans generally only move toward communal support systems during extreme crises, like the shift during the Great Depression. Even Covid wasn't enough to get people asking for universal healthcare, it has to be much worse. Overcoming 'American Exceptionalism' to adop…

I'd argue from the founding of the country all the way up to Nixon/Reagan the country took education seriously. It wasn't due to economic crisis as there were many since the founding. There was this sense of societal responsibility that has disappeared.

[deleted]

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#806

Post by samus » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 5:21 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #748

samus wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably should have been. But the presidential system putting de-facto unchecked power into the president is just asking for such abuses to happen. Almost by design one might think.

It's not unchecked power. The very fact the courts overturned it proof the power is checked.

That's true in theory, but really missing the point. In practice these checks come far too late. The court system is notoriously overworked and slow. In this case, most of these tariffs will not be returned because the government will make it an administrative nightmare to claim it back. In other matters the damage is even harder to roll back.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#807

Post by nothrabannosir » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 8:28 AM UTC

bdangubic wrote: post #773

nothrabannosir wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which actual law should send them to jail? The law is constantly applied to Trump and his administration. The judicial branch keeps reining him in: National guard, ice, tariffs—-literally TFA for Pete’s sake. Parent post isn’t about any specific law, it’s about wanting to see a result and working backwards from there: my political opponents should go to jail. Guess what will happen? The administration after that will…

> If you genuinely want Trump to go to jail , get Congress to create actual laws that he’d be breaking, with actual clear unmistakable language about its consequences. Trammel up the votes in the midterms. SCOTUS will enforce it: they have done so, every time, when Congress is clear and decisive. They have indicated as much! The judicial branch is the only one left doing its job. The law applies. You don’t like how i…

I wish you made some concrete points rather than condescendingly rephrasing your opinion different ways a few times.

SCOTUS has actively thwarted the current administration’s efforts :

- tariffs

- national guard deployment

- foreign aid

- deportation of man to Salvador

These cases , as well as the cases they’ve ruled in favor of the administration , have been couched in reasoning based on the actual laws passed by congress so far. Read the majority opinions and the concurrences and it is clear that this is not some arbitrary “hey he got us here so let’s do what he wants” (In particular Gorsuch), but they’re actually basing their rulings on the written text.

Meanwhile there is a body whose literal job it is to arrange those texts. And you can elect them come fall. I don’t know how to answer your last , ostensibly rhetorical?, question , other than: yes how do you think any of the current laws got here? That’s what congress does.

Go vote in the midterms for the love of god.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#808

Post by nothrabannosir » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 8:45 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #771

nothrabannosir wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which actual law should send them to jail? The law is constantly applied to Trump and his administration. The judicial branch keeps reining him in: National guard, ice, tariffs—-literally TFA for Pete’s sake. Parent post isn’t about any specific law, it’s about wanting to see a result and working backwards from there: my political opponents should go to jail. Guess what will happen? The administration after that will…

1.) Supreme court literally decided that Trump can not commit crime while in the office. Full stop. 2.) Trump was convinced of felony. That does not apply to him, because he is a president. 3.) This administration ignores the courts. > If you genuinely want Trump to go to jail , get Congress to create actual laws that he’d be breaking, They actually did made those laws. Supreme court decided to either rewrite those l…

> 2.) Trump was convinced of felony. That does not apply to him, because he is a president.

There are cases for which Trump should have been tried, but the NY one about mislabeling funds was not one of them. It was a massive reach, and I bet you Meanwhile he pressured georgia secretary of state to "find votes", in a recorded call; he should have been tried for this but it didn't get brought to the courts. This was a failing of the executive: you cannot expect courts to rule on a matter which is never brought to them.

Half the country voted for this. At some point this is democracy in action. If you commit election fraud and somehow nobody charges you, i guess the same will apply to you. :(

The NY case had poor facts but was well fought. The Georgia case had good facts but was poorly fought.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#809

Post by UltraSane » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 11:03 AM UTC

braincat31415 wrote: post #800

watwut wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does not matter what favors which administration It does matter. Republicans are supporting the Iran war right now. Americans in general are not, republicans are in. Conservatives and MAGA even more. So, no, they were not actually worrying about military adventures, they like them. > The grass is always greener on the other side, and people that cannot afford rent are just not going to vote for more of the same…

War - history won't agree with you. Trump started Iran. Biden got us into supporting Ukraine on the other side of the planet. I like neither. Crime - I don't care about "going down for years". I look at Chicago where I work, and people in my office these days make sure they are out of the south part of downtown before the dark. The guy's business started nosediving 5 years ago, and you mention Trump again? Jeez. Anyw…

Iran and Ukraine are not even remotely comparable situations.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#810

Post by simmerup » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 12:07 PM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #351

simmerup wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he does know that Trump had no plan to contest the supreme court or make new laws

Trump doesn’t have those powers.

Trump doesn't have a lot of powers he's using regardless

Like starting wars and creating tarrifs. He could have just broke the law again