Last week, United States Representative Joseph Crowley of New York introduced the Affordable Footwear Initiative (AFI), legislation that would eliminate tariffs on shoes and sneakers. American footwear leaders joined with him in calling for the elimination of this tariff that has resulted in consumers being charged up to 40 percent over the market value of footwear, mostly worn by children, making this bill one of the best anti-poverty tax cuts since the Earned Income Tax Credit expansion of the early 1990s.

As a general matter, tariffs are the smallest, most opaque, and probably least understood part of America's tax system. The public has little opportunity to see their cost in daily life -- tariffs on consumer goods, while often very high, never appear on department store receipts. But the tariff system is well worth a look. Almost half of all tariff revenue comes from cheap and simple shoes and clothes. This makes the system extremely tough on America's poorer families, even while it fails to protect jobs in light industry, but they can be reformed at little cost with large benefit to the poor.

Tariffs on shoes are the extreme case. Dating to the 1920s, they have survived almost unchanged since the 1950s. Fifty years later, they no longer affect jobs since shoemaking in the United States has long since changed from a labor-intensive field employing a quarter-million cobblers to one in which most of the United States' 16,000 jobs in this industry are in design, research, and marketing, while assembly is done in Asia. The cheapest shoes with the highest tariffs haven't been made in the US since the 1970s.

"American families, unbeknownst to them, are being forced to pay an unfair and steep tax passed along to them when purchasing shoes for their children," said Rep. Crowley. "Once enacted, this common-sense, uncontroversial reform of an outdated duty system will stop this unfair practice that costs families up to $5 billion annually. By eliminating this duty system, we are saving billions for American families who need to meet their obligations and live within fixed budgets."

Altogether shoe tariffs raise $2 billion a year (roughly as much as cars and ten times as much as steel) for the United States. However, these tariffs are the single most regressive tax in the United States running from 8.5 percent for expensive Italian leather shoes to 48 percent for cheap sneakers. Unfortunately because the rates are higher on the cheapest good the Progressive Policy Institute finds that these shoe tariffs affect low-income families with children far more than other Americans. In fact, a family whose average income is $15,000 a year will spend roughly $70 a year just on shoe tariffs.

The Affordable Footwear Act does not include the few footwear products made in the United States, so it would have no employment effect at all -- even as it eliminates the single most regressive tax in the American revenue system. Rep. Crowley's Affordable Footwear Act is a common-sense effort that will help everyone who wears shoes -- and most of all the poor.