Regarding the March 28 letters package “What Trump’s tariffs have done to our small businesses”:
Born in a garage 40 years ago, my company now employs 100 hardworking Mississippians and supplies more than 10,000 retail stores nationwide. My husband and I have spent decades forging relationships with villages and towns in eight countries, sourcing unique, handcrafted items that have no U.S. made equivalent.
In 2024, we paid substantial tariffs. In 2025, that burden doubled and we paid $1 million, a crushing blow to a company our size. These aren’t empty numbers. They represent jobs, salaries, health coverage and the well-being of 100 Mississippi families. The tariffs went to the federal government instead of our employees’ profit-sharing checks. Where does that money do the most good? Disappearing into “Never Never Land” or going to American workers?
I’m not one to sit back and wait for Washington to notice. I propose a solution I call “The Employee Profit Share Tax Credit.” To qualify, companies like mine that import goods would share 10 percent of their profits with their employees. In return, they would receive 90 percent of their tariff payments back from the government. The government keeps the remaining 10 percent.
It’s a “win win” solution for everyone: Donald Trump (or any president) wins because tariffs remain in place as a powerful geopolitical tool; employees win by receiving substantial shares of any profit; America wins because that extra income in employees’ pockets will fuel local economies and small businesses. And this credit is a lifeline for the “unintended casualties” of the tariff war: we, the small-to-medium-size businesses that’ve done everything right, yet now are taxed disproportionately.
This isn’t a bailout. It’s a blueprint for runaway economic growth, one that rewards companies for sharing their success with their American workforce.
Susan Williams, Jackson, Mississippi
During World Wars I and II, the U.S. government issued war bonds, which allowed citizens to put their savings in an instrument that would appreciate over time. They were advertised as a way to finance the war, slow inflation and show patriotic zeal.
Today, the government faces two issues: a likely significant increase in the Iran’s war costs and the obligation to refund tariffs collected.
Suppose the U.S. treasury could offer those entitled to refunds deferred payments, some years out, at a higher rate than the bond market’s?
The administration would demonstrate that it is trying to innovate on the refund issue outside the court system, creating a pathway to avoid expensive litigation for potential beneficiaries and to lessen the burden on an already far too unwieldy budget deficit. It would also be a chance for those who claim to support the Iran war to do so with their pocketbooks.
Richard Seifman, Rockville
The exercise of refunding tariffs via case-by-case litigation would not be exclusively outgo for the treasury. It would be like the estate tax; I’ve long wondered whether the real money coming in is not in estate tax payments but, rather, in the income tax collected from all those professionals — lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, et al. — who command handsome fees to help people avoid the estate tax.
So, too, should refunds result from litigation, they will be offset to some degree by the income taxes of the masses of lawyers hired to pry them out. But that is not likely to occur, because the Court of International Trade — the court that originally ruled the tariffs were illegal and was ultimately sustained by the Supreme Court — issued an order on March 27 to Customs and Border Protection to process all refunds. That is good news for importers. But it will cost the treasury more, all things considered.
Thomas M. Sneeringer, Washington
As to repayment of tariffs, the law is clear. I learned the law in third grade, and a hundred-plus-page Supreme Court decision could not make it clearer:
“He who takes what isn’t his’n
Must give it back, or go to prison.”
Paul Horvitz, Bethesda
Distracted parenting
The March 19 Local Living article “The distinct mortification of being phone-shamed by your kid” struck a nerve. Before my daughter could talk, I was sitting on a couch one day looking at my phone. Then I felt two little hands take my head and tilt it up. No words could have shamed me more.
Ilya Shlyakhter, Belmont, Massachusetts
Prior to the invention of the cellphone, life happened without demanding our constant attention. I am fairly certain it will continue to do so without our eyeballs glued to phones.
I survived and even thrived in my childhood and teen years without being under the surveillance of my parents, as did most of my peers and the generations of people before us. Indeed, I would have detested being on an electronic leash that enabled my parents to instantly demand my attention regardless of my whereabouts or activity. In many cases, it was better for me that they not know.
Unless you’re a first responder or work for NORAD, do yourself a favor and toss your cellphone.
Stephen Konnoff, Sacramento
From this article I learned that “resilience coach for children” is a job that at least one person claims to have.
Tom Carroll, Evanston, Illinois
If parents tucked their phones into their children’s car seats, there would probably be a lot fewer children “forgotten” in the back seat of a parked car. We have all read of the (sometimes) fatal consequences.
It is sad that we might forget our child in the car but doubtful that we would ever forget and leave our phone in the car.
Mary Catherine McCoy, Odessa, Florida
This reminds me of when I was a child and all the adults in the room were glued to the television. We couldn’t go to dinner at my relatives’ without the TV on constantly. My mother refused to have a TV in the living room or dining room. It was down in the basement, surrounded by “Early American”-style ugly brown furniture. Once a week, we were allowed to eat dinner in front of the TV to watch Walt Disney. I knew people who had televisions in every room of their house, and no one seemed to talk to each other in those families. Phones are even worse because they are portable. I have to force myself to leave my phone in my purse when I go out to dinner because it’s too tempting to check the headlines or read text messages.
Judith Kerr, Aurora, Colorado
I have said for years, “Being in touch is highly overrated.”
I love my friends and want to know what they’re doing with their lives, but I don’t need to be called or texted because someone found a “lucky” dime on the ground when they swept the sidewalk or that they spiced up dinner by using garlic salt where the recipe said to use onion salt. And who needs to see a dozen photos of some hotel where someone stayed on a business trip?
When email was new, we jumped through the air and answered immediately. No more.
What’s left to talk about when you get face to face?
Dick Ellingson, Miles City, Montana
I was kind of chuckling at reading about adults doing what kids do in school instead of listening to their teachers. The breathless need to see, right then and there, pictures taken at a past event is bewildering.
I banned the use of electronic devices in my classes at my university and recommended that the local school district where I substituted do the same.
I’m happy to report that not one of my university students died of frustration at being denied instant gratification. Some may have even learned something about the topic being covered.
Parents, please understand that seeing your kids here and now is more important than seeing your friends at some event, even if it is at a fabulous destination.
Bill Loving, Green Bay, Wisconsin
These “adults” need to get over their phone addictions. If you can’t wait a few seconds or a minute to turn away from your phone and toward your child doing something, you are the child, constantly needing stimulation. That’s why they are called “cell” phones: You’ve locked yourself in solitary confinement with them.
Zigy Kaluzny, Boulder, Colorado
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