Of course it would. Stop subsidizing shit. Let costs come down. Return most of the government back to the state level and have state income taxes. At the federal level you could have a national sales tax on top of the tariffs. You would be shocked Ricter how little money the government really needs to function.
A high tariff wall would trigger immediate reprisals from everyone we trade with. In other words, we'd be going to war with 150 nations. We need them a lot more than they, collectively, need us.
Who said anything about high tariffs? To be honest, we could probably do without any tarrifs. I believe Ron Paul doesn't even support tarrifs.
I don't know that I can agree with this. I'm sure you were using hyperbole on purpose, but I think the US consumer is a lot more valuable than you give credit for.
I do not think Ron Paul would support tariffs. But then he believes there is a Laissez Fairey at work, protecting us, such that if we lower our tariffs, so will everyone else. I mentioned tariffs, in response to your point about our early history without an income tax, and yet the bills got paid. Here's how that worked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history
Right, we could do without tariffs. We could have a state income tax, corporate tax at the federal level, capital gains taxes at the federal level, and a national sales tax. Currently our system is set up to have corporations pay little to no taxes while individuals pay the most. Why not shift that back to the corporations? We should be putting more emphasis on state government and let states tax accordingly, as progressive as they want. The federal government should have limited powers and be much smaller. Again, we don't need that much money to run the federal government.