Ex-Pence chief scorches tariff rebates — likens them to Soviet-style central planning

29 July

Marc Short, Image via Screengrab.

Marc Short, who served in the first Trump administration as White House Director of Legislative Affairs and then as Vice President Mike Pence’s Chief of Staff, is blasting not only President Donald Trump’s tariffs but also U.S. Senator Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) plan—supported by Trump—to hand out tariff rebate checks to every person in America.

On Monday, NBC News described Hawley’s plan to “provide tariff rebate checks of at least $600 per adult and child to American families,” as “similar to the stimulus checks the government distributed during the Covid pandemic.”

Short, a conservative Republican who got his start in politics in the 1990s, has an MBA from the University of Virginia.

In a social media post Monday, he scorched the Trump tariff agenda—slamming both the tariffs themselves and the proposed rebates (which he acknowledges are paid by U.S. consumers)—and likened it all to Soviet-style, communist, or socialist economies, where government “central planners” dictate prices and decide who gets what.

“Why do we need rebates if foreign nations are paying the tariffs?” Short asked. “And how bout Congress exercises its constitutional authority and eliminates [the] tariff tax rather than trying to be central planners redistributing $. ?”

Last week, Short also blasted the tariff system, the proposed rebates — and the Trump administration.

“I’ve never seen a Republican administration with this many central planners,” he wrote on social media. “Rebating tariff revenue sounds like a Democrat idea. If you really want to help working families, don’t send checks—cut the tariffs. It’s Americans paying them, not foreign governments.”

Those remarks came alongside an interview (video below) of him speaking with Bloomberg News.

“I’ve never seen a Republican administration with so many central planners in their economics department,” he said.

“This is basically the policy of the Democrats, which you’ve seen in the last couple of years, the Republicans advanced legislation to raise a federal minimum wage,” Short said. “You’ve seen Republicans embrace more regulations. And so I think it reflects the dramatic shift [economically] in the Republican Party.”

“I think rather than saying ‘rebate checks,’ it’s important to remind people that the money rolling into the Treasury is a tax on the American people. It’s not a foreign government paying the tariff. It’s American citizens paying the tariff. So rather than giving a rebate check, one thing to do would actually be to lower the tariffs, if that’s what they want to do to provide help to working families.”

President Trump’s tariffs are widely unpopular.

Last week, a YouGov poll found a majority of Americans (56%) disapprove of Trump’s tariffs. Nearly seven in ten Americans (69%) say tariffs are paid by U.S. companies and consumers. A majority (55%) said tariffs do more to hurt rather than help Americans. And nearly half (49%) said Trump does not have a clear U.S. trade policy.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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