These Days Before the Vote: "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent."

Whitewater, Wis. — Today’s entry this Wednesday evening continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing each day before the November election a principle or position on which our liberal democratic tradition rests.

Consider the Declaration’s charge against the British monarch: “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” American colonists rightly objected to Britain’s claim that Parliament could tax them despite their lack of representatives in that body (that, so to speak, 'virtual representation' was representation enough). 1765's Stamp Act taxed paper, legal documents, and other items. The Stamp Act Congress answered that legitimate taxation required consent given personally or through actual (not virtual) representatives. Their objection concerned who could authorize taxation.

Tariffs create costs for importers bringing goods into the United States. Customs guidance confirms that importers (Americans) must pay the estimated duties. Indeed, there is overwhelming evidence that almost 90% of these import prices are passed on to Americans. See Mary Amiti, Sebastian Heise, and David E. Weinstein, How Fast Do Tariffs Pass Through into Consumer Prices?, Liberty St. Econ., October 6, 2026 ("A tariff raises the price a U.S. importer (which could be a firm or a consumer) pays for a foreign good, unless the foreign exporter cuts its price to absorb some of the cost. In a previous post, we found that foreign exporters lowered their prices very little, so that nearly 90 percent of the 2025 tariffs were passed through to U.S. import prices.").

Ten months after Trump's imposition of tariffs, the U.S. Supreme Court held that IEEPA did not authorize these presidential tariffs. The high court's reasoning identified tariffs as taxes, emphasized Congress’s constitutional taxing power, and connected that allocation to the Revolution’s objection to taxation without representation. See Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287, slip op. at 5–7, 14–16, 20 (U.S. Feb. 20, 2026).

Trump’s IEEPA tariffs bypassed representative consent by asserting a taxing authority Congress had not granted.

Imposition of taxes on the American colonists without representation was wrong centuries ago, and imposition of taxes on American citizens without congressional authorization was wrong in our time.