House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) sent a letter to the president earlier this week requesting that he drop tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber and Mexican cement. He points out that “the softwood lumber tariff alone adds at least $1,000 to the average new home.” If that is the case then why wait for a hurricane to drop the tariffs? Get rid of them now, permanently. Blunt, like most Republicans in Congress, operates on politics and not principle. If tariffs result in higher prices for Americans then why doesn’t Blunt call for an end of tariffs on everything, not just on lumber and cement. After a couple of years with no major hurricanes, I’m sure that Blunt would be one of the first to call for tariffs on lumber and cement.