THE RACK: the story behind one VOICWAR design, with sources. The newsletter, TEETH, arrives every other week. Subscribe.
We ran this experiment. It failed. We are running it again.
Tariffs got sold to farmers as a rescue. Here is the entire thing on a timeline, because it is shorter than you think.
1928. Hoover campaigns on tariffs for farmers. Tax the imports so cheap European crops stop undercutting them.
April 1929. He calls a special session of Congress for one purpose: raising taxes on imported farm goods.
By the time it passes. It is not a farm bill anymore. Smoot-Hawley covers more than 20,000 imported products. Every industry with a lobbyist got a line in.
May 1930. 1,028 economists sign a petition begging Hoover to veto it: "cotton, pork, lard, and wheat are export crops and sold in the world market." Translation: you cannot raise the price of a thing you sell overseas by taxing what comes in.
Also May 1930. Canada hits back with taxes on American goods before the bill is even signed.
June 17, 1930. Hoover signs it anyway.
By 1933. Nine more countries have hit back the same way. American exports are down 61%. The farmers it was written for have lost the markets they lived on.
That is the whole story. Every person who needed to know how it would end knew before the vote, in writing, and it passed anyway.
Now we are doing it again.
Same pitch. Same promise. Same people lined up to eat the loss. The only new part is that this time you get to watch it happen live.
Your teacher was right about one thing. If you do not learn your history, you repeat it. That is not a line for a test. That is a bill coming due.
Wear it. When somebody asks, you have the receipt.
Sources: Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act — Wikipedia · Hoover Signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act — EBSCO Research Starters · The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression — FEE