Kamala Harris’s Economic Policies

By Tangtong @Adobe Stock

Has Kamala Earned Votes

What are KH’s economic policies? Have you not heard what she would do about inflation, spending, taxes, deficits, regulation, and trade? Well, good luck with that, buddy.

Harris has been the de facto nominee for almost a month. Tim Walz has been Harris’s running mate for nearly two weeks now. As Jim Geraghty notes in NRO, “neither one has done a single interview or press conference — no sit-down with 60 Minutes, no meeting with a newspaper editorial board, no Sunday shows. No interviews with local network television affiliates in swing states. Not even an on-the-record chat with Walz’s hometown papers or radio stations.”

Kamala deals in banal generalities, a few poll-tested specifics, and Democrat nostrums about greedy corporations and the rich not paying their “fair share” of taxes, laments Michael J. Boskin in the WSJ. (In fact, America has the most progressive tax system in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.)

Voters have three sources of insight to her thinking: 1) her positions when running for president in 2019, 2) the Biden-Harris economic policies, and 3) the economic program she rolled out Friday.

Encouraging Black Markets

Let’s start at the beginning: Kamala’s policies have a $2 trillion deficit-financed cost, mostly to expand health subsidies and Biden-Harris child and earned-income tax-credit proposals, gasps Mr. Boskin:

Ms. Harris wants to give first-time home buyers a $25,000 government check, which is more than the typical down payment on a starter home and would likely drive up home prices.

Kamala favors subsidies to developers of low-income housing and price controls on groceries. Joe Biden proposed national rent controls. Although perhaps briefly popular, price controls from ancient Rome to Richard Nixon’s era have had disastrous consequences such as shortages and black markets.

$1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan

The current administration’s policies and proposals are also enlightening unless Ms. Harris repudiates them. Of note is the March 2021 $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which led to the worst inflation in 40 years. The result: years of declining living standards for tens of millions of working families as wage hikes failed to keep up with price increases.

Inflation: How Government Steals Wealth from Citizens

Mr. Boskin cries “shameless” for a politician to deflect blame, then takes credit for subsidies and price caps to help people pay for some things they can’t afford.

As VP, Ms. Harris cast the tie-breaking Senate vote for the inappropriate-named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a potpourri of green-energy subsidies now estimated to cost more than $1 trillion, or three times the original estimate. If these policies somehow remained in place until 2100, global temperature would be lower by 0.03 degrees.

EVs Stalling and Scaling back

Biden’s infrastructure bill did address some federal needs. The real problem was that it was so loaded with special-interest favors that it would get far fewer highway miles built and bridges repaired than advertised.

In almost three years, only eight of the half-million promised charging stations have been built. Meanwhile, electric vehicle sales have stalled, and automakers are scaling back.

Team Biden/Harris seek:

• To raise business and personal tax rates
• To tax unrealized capital gains
• To help foreign countries raise taxes on U.S. companies
• To let key provisions of the 2017 tax reforms expire

Biden/Harris dismiss these as mere taxes on the rich, but the measures would also prevent millions of Americans from becoming richer and would hinder economic growth.

During Mrs. Harris’s presidential run, she campaigned on banning fracking. Fracking, in fact, made America into an energy superpower, added hundreds of billions of dollars to the economy, curbed Russia’s energy hold on Europe, and reduced the strategic power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Ruin the Economy with $43.9 Trillion for Medicare for All

Senator Harris co-sponsored Medicare for All, a government single-payer system that would eliminate private health insurance for more than half the population, now with a 10-year cost of $43.9 trillion, Mr. Boskin reminds readers.

It would force many hospitals to close, while others would have to lay off hundreds of thousands of employees and eliminate services. It would ruin the economy, requiring the equivalent of either raising the national debt to 210% of gross domestic product or raising all federal taxes 70%.

Harris’s Stand on the Green New Deal

Didn’t Ms. Harris co-sponsore the economically, scientifically, and numerically illiterate Green New Deal? Ostensibly the GND was designed to deal with climate risks, real and imagined. Among its goals is retrofitting all existing buildings to full energy efficiency in 12 years. Mr. Boskin warns that would be the equivalent of completing an “impossible 33,000“buildings a day.”

It would guarantee lots more government handouts, even some outright public ownership, of Green New Deal projects through financing such as public banks or community grants.

Kamala Aids now says she no longer supports a total fracking ban. She also now supports less-costly additions to government health and climate regulation, warns Mr. Boskin.

Voters will have to discern her sincerity and willingness to buck the radical wing of her party—something Joe Biden has seldom done as president.

Will Harris Seek Bipartisan Support

Should Harris win in November, voters can only hope she seeks bipartisan compromise solutions. But Harris is no Bill Clinton, formerly the pragmatic governor of conservative Arkansas.

Michael J. Boskin ia a Hoover Institution senior fellow and an economics professor at Stanford. Boskin warns in the WSJ, Kamala’s proposals would lead to slower growth, more inflation, and no relief from the debt crisis. Voters know little of Harris’s economic or monetary policies. 

Don’t forget, warns Mr. Boskin, Kamala Harris is the product of the deep-blue one-party rule that has put California deep in the red. Kamala’s proposals would lead to slower growth, more inflation, and no relief from the debt crisis.