Trump's 'stealth tax increases' forcing holiday shoppers to 'make some choices': report

Wichita Eagle Opinion Editor Dion Lefler said most voters are feeling the weight of President Donald Trump’s tariffs this holiday season, but elderly grandparents on fixed incomes are definitely catching the worst of it.

“One of the funny things about tariffs — those pesky tax increases President Donald Trump has imposed on imported goods — is they show up where you least expect them. Like on your grocery bill,” Lefler said. “You may have absolutely nothing in your shopping cart but American-grown meat and produce. But that doesn’t mean that tariffs — Trump’s chief weapon in his trade war against the world — aren’t biting you in the budget this Christmas season.”

Lefler participated in a Monday Zoom conversation with Debbie Collins, a retiree living mainly on the state of Kansas’ public employees’ retirement system after 36 years in state government, and Nick Levendofsky, who is the executive director of the Kansas Farmer’s Union.

Collins described a season of more shopping at discount stores, more low-quality generics over name brands, more couponing and more stockpiling items when they’re on sale.

“But even with those adjustments, my grocery bill is still higher than it ever was before, and it’s really hard to make my budget stretch,” said Collins, adding that the holiday season has added stress to shopping for presents for “two perfect grandchildren.”

“I’ve had to kind of, you know, make some choices about what I can and can’t get for them,” Collins said. “These tariffs may sound really abstract to people in Washington, but for those of us back home and people like me, they show up every single time I go to the store.”

Lefler wrote that he wishes Collins well in her holiday shopping, adding: "I don’t like higher prices, especially not when they’re caused by stealth tax increases, which is all tariffs really are."

Over on the producer’s end of the spectrum, Levendofsky warned that the tariffs are ruining markets upon which Kansas farmers depend.

“Reckless tariffs disrupt export markets, invite retaliation and make it harder for Kansas farmers to compete, especially when other countries respond by shutting out US products,” Levendofsky said. “At the same time, tariffs raise farmers’ costs by increasing the price of essential inputs like equipment, fertilizer, fuel and packaging materials.”

Financial pressure doesn’t “stop at the farm gate,” Levendofsky warned.

“When farmers face higher costs and fewer markets, those. They move through the supply chain. That’s how tariffs end up raising prices for groceries and everyday items that Kansas families rely on,” he said.

“Meanwhile, the president is doing what he usually does — blame his predecessor and deny, deny, deny,” said Lefler, adding that Trump, “in his free-range rambling national address last week,” cherry-picked a handful of items that have dropped in price, including eggs — which not only dropped less in price than Trump claims, but also had everything to do with a spike in bird flu that purged henhouses of birds, not Trump’s intelligent leadership.

With only one Kansas U.S. House member willing to oppose Trump’s tariff doctrine, however, the chances of grandparents' budgets being less stressed is slim.

“[Kansas has] one [Democrat] of four representatives and the other three [Republicans] are committed to riding Trump’s tariff train wherever it takes their constituents,” Lefler said. “From groceries to gifts, we’re feeling the pinch of Trump’s tariffs this holiday season, and I expect we will be for at least the next three Christmases yet to come.”