Watch Congressman ridicule a bumbling Treasury Secretary unable to tell the truth about tariffs

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) exposed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the Trump sycophant he is, refusing to acknowledge that Americans pay Trump’s tariffs to pay for tax cuts for rich people.

Treasury Secretary unable to tell the truth.

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Summary

During a House hearing, Representative Mark Pocan repeatedly asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, “Who pays the tariffs?” Bessent’s evasive, rambling replies exposed the administration’s refusal to admit that U.S. consumers and businesses shoulder Trump’s tariff burden, underscoring how the policy siphons money from working families to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.

• Pocan pressed Bessent five times, highlighting the Secretary’s inability—or unwillingness—to state the obvious.
• Basic economics shows importers pay at the port and swiftly pass costs on to consumers through higher prices.
• Bessent’s equivocation revealed the loyalty test that compels Trump officials to bury inconvenient truths.
• Tariff revenues backfill deficits created by Republican tax cuts, effectively taxing the many to enrich the few.
• Small businesses, rural hospitals, and low‑income households absorb the steepest price hikes, widening inequality.

The exchange exposes a governing philosophy that protects billionaires while extracting hidden taxes from everyday Americans. Progressives must continue spotlighting this shell game, build public pressure to repeal regressive tariffs, and replace them with fair taxation that invests in workers, small towns, and a just green economy for all.

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The drama unfolding inside the House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee this week distilled, in a single exchange, the intellectual bankruptcy of Donald Trump’s economic program. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent arrived convinced that evasiveness could paper over arithmetic. Representative Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin progressive and small‑business owner, exposed that delusion in under five minutes. When Pocan repeatedly asked the Secretary the most basic question in trade economics—“Who pays tariffs?”—Bessent sputtered about exporters, “strategic uncertainty,” and “complex mixes,” refusing to utter the plain truth: American importers write the initial checks and households ultimately foot the bill through higher prices. His performance did not merely reveal personal incompetence; it underscored how Trumpism demands factual obfuscation to hide policies that raid working‑class pocketbooks so the wealthy may gorge on tax cuts.

The progressive critique of tariffs starts with elementary economics. Tariffs function as consumption taxes that are easiest for firms to pass along when demand is inelastic, which describes most day‑to‑day essentials. Peer‑reviewed studies surveyed by the Brookings Institution show that the lion’s share of Trump‑era duties landed on U.S. consumers and businesses, not on foreign producers. Researchers found near‑complete pass‑through in many product categories, meaning price tags rose roughly the same percentage as the tariff. Even limited exceptions merely shifted the burden onto U.S. importers, shrinking profit margins, suppressing wages, and strangling investment.

In the new round announced this spring—25 percent on steel and aluminum, up to 145 percent on goods from China, blanket levies on Canada and Mexico—analysts at the Peterson Institute for International Economics calculate a hit of more than $1,200 per year for the typical household, climbing past $2,600 if Trump implements his threatened across‑the‑board duties. The toy industry calls the policy a “nuclear bomb,” warning of Christmas shortages and dramatic price hikes. Nearly 80 percent of U.S. toys originate in Chinese factories fine‑tuned over decades for specialized production. Low‑income families, who spend a greater share of their income on goods, will absorb the harshest blow.

Bessent’s refusal to concede that reality betrays a deeper political calculation. Trump desperately needs tariff revenue to offset the fiscal crater left by his renewed tax bonanza for the rich. Independent scoring shows that the latest Tax Cuts 2.0 balloons the deficit by trillions while delivering crumbs to everyone earning under $400,000; tariffs serve as a stealth claw‑back. In effect, Trump levies a hidden tax on workers and small businesses, funnels the proceeds into the Treasury, then hands the spoils to billionaires and multinational shareholders. The scheme satisfies the plutocratic donors underwriting his campaign but devastates the rural economies he claims to champion, where federal jobs, postal routes, and USDA offices anchor fragile Main Streets.

Progressives rightly highlight the moral bankruptcy of this wealth transfer. In the hearing, Pocan illustrated how tariff surcharges already appear on invoices for his engraving company—and how domestic suppliers exploit the chaos to raise prices on unrelated inputs, magnifying inflation. His testimony echoed a 2018 Hutchins Roundup finding: consumers were paying $3 billion per month in tariff costs and losing another $1.4 billion to economic inefficiency long before the new hikes.

Bessent’s bumbling matters beyond optics. Treasury secretaries manage not only federal coffers but global confidence in U.S. stewardship of the international financial system. When the top economic diplomat cannot articulate who pays a tax he champions, allies doubt Washington’s competence, investors demand higher risk premiums, and working families pay twice—first at the checkout line, then through higher interest rates. That cascade is already visible in the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book: firms cite tariffs as a “key driver” of cost escalation and capital‑expenditure delays.

The episode also reveals the mainstream media’s complicity. Major networks dutifully aired Bessent’s opening statement yet clipped Pocan’s interrogation for time. Independent outlets such as The New Republic, Daily Kos, and Barron’s filled the gap, offering the unvarnished video and contextual reporting that corporate broadcasters buried under horse‑race punditry. That asymmetry underscores why progressive media ecosystems remain indispensable: they dissect power, connect dots, and elevate voices intent on economic justice.

What emerges is a stark choice. One path normalizes presidential narcissism, enforces loyalty tests on public servants, and soaks ordinary Americans to bankroll oligarchic gain. The alternative—championed by Pocan, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and allied movements—pairs strategic industrial policy with multilateral cooperation, robust labor standards, and equitable tax reform. It rejects fear‑mongering about China in favor of coordinated investment in green manufacturing at home, financed by progressive taxation rather than regressive tariffs. It insists that economic security flows from empowered workers, strong unions, and democratic trade control, not from theatrical brinkmanship.

Scott Bessent’s humiliation may fade from the news cycle, but the legislative battlefield is only beginning to heat up. Progressives must seize the moment to educate constituents on the hidden tax draining their paychecks, to pressure swing‑district representatives who quietly tolerate tariff pain, and to demand that 2026 budget negotiations repeal these levies while clawing back the billionaire windfall. The fight is not merely over trade policy; it is over who governs—a Wall Street–White House alliance that brands itself populist, or a genuine multiracial coalition determined to build an economy that works for everyone. Only the latter can transform Pocan’s viral sound bite into a durable victory for working people.