Trump Announces External Revenue Service Creation

I have to give Trump credit… he really knows how to create some headlines.

This week, Trump announced that he would be creating the External Revenue Service (ERS), which I found rather ironic considering his pledge to reduce government agencies, not increase them.

The new agency would take the lead in collecting revenue from foreign sources.

Another Agency

So, this is now the second new agency that Trump is creating, without actually having been able to cut out any agencies, so, yeah, I am skeptical.

On his new agency, Trump stated, “For far too long, we have relied on taxing our Great People using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Through soft and pathetically weak Trade agreements, the American Economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves.

“I am today announcing that I will create the EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE [ERS] to collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources.”

Tariffs and duties are nothing new, and there are currently agencies in place to administer and collect these moneys, so this is not exactly some brilliant idea being put in place by Trump.

Currently, this falls under the United States Customs and Border Protection, CBP.

If Trump wants to create this agency, he will need to do so through Congress, although there are other ways to make this happen, such as putting the agency under another existing agency.

But, as I said, this is redundancy, as it already falls under CBP.

As I have told you guys before, I am not going to sit here and applaud every move made by Trump; that is not my job.

My job is to give you an honest assessment of performance and policy, and this announcement is nothing more than a headline grab doing nothing more than creating a new agency for something that is already in existence under DHS and CBP.

We don’t need it. And we surely do not need yet another agency adding even more salaries for the American taxpayer to fund.