Although the recession originated in the nation’s troubled financial sector, manufacturers blamed foreign competition for the weak economy.21 Yet higher duties were proposed as a potential remedy because the government had no other policy instruments with which to address the slump. The government did not have a discretionary monetary policy, and there was no fiscal policy, because federal spending was a tiny part of the overall economy. Therefore, producers facing competition from imports had no alternative but to demand that the only available policy tool, import tariffs, be raised to
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