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[pampango]

87. That tariff sounds like the Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922 (the 'scientific tariff')

The Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922 introduced two new concepts:

The first was the scientific tariff. The purpose of the scientific tariff was to equalize production costs among countries so that no country could undercut the prices charged by American companies. The difference of production costs was calculated by the Tariff Commission.

A second novelty was the American Selling Price. This allowed the president to calculate the duty based on the price of the American price of a good, not the imported good.
The bill also gave the president the power to raise or lower rates on products if it was recommended by the Tariff Commission.

The tariff was supported by the Republican party and conservatives and was generally opposed by the Democratic Party and liberal progressives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordney%E2%80%93McCumber_Tariff

Republicans had enacted higher tariffs in 1921 two months after Harding succeeded Wilson. Of course, the 1921 and 1922 tariffs, which were largely opposed by Democrats, did not solve our economic problems. Indeed by 1929 income inequality had reached unprecedented levels (since exceeded in the past decade, of course) so republicans came back to the idea again (apparently perceived by them as the only tool in their tool box) in 1929 with Smoot/Hawley.

During the 1928 presidential campaign Hoover promised to raise tariff rates again.

In their certitude that tariff hikes were the answer, no matter what the question, Smoot’s Republicans resemble today’s Republicans, who put a similar faith in tax cuts.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/eb6357c0-3d1a-11e0-bbff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1EaoLpkGn

The Utah Republican senator Reed Smoot ... wanted to prop up the market in sugar beets, which his constituents grew. He also wanted to protect citizens from imported pornography. ... Economists warned, almost unanimously, that he was on the path of folly. Smoot dismissed them as the dark, “powerful forces” that “lurk in the international economic conferences held in Europe”.

(I)n June 1930, it passed in a flurry of parliamentary manoeuvres and vote-buying, and President Herbert Hoover signed it into law, conceding it was not “perfect”. The Senate bill passed on a vote of 44 to 42, with 39 Republicans and 5 Democrats voting in favor of the bill. The conference committee then aligned the two versions, largely by moving to the greater House tariffs. The House passed the conference bill on a vote of 222 to 153, with the support of 208 Republicans and 14 Democrats. Republicans lost their House majority in that autumn’s elections to an opposition (Democrats) urging repeal.

Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke against the act while campaigning for president during 1932. ... The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was a reflection of Republican Party policy. In his 1932 election campaign platform Franklin Delano Roosevelt pledged to lower tariffs. He and the now-Democratic Congress did so in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. ... After World War II this undergirded a push towards multi-lateral trading agreements that would prevent a similar situation from unfolding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act