Editors at National Review Online critique Kamala Harris’ economic proposals.
Kamala Harris can’t decide whether Democrats’ economic record the past few years is something to build on or something to run from. But she has decided on what she will do if elected: government decrees and government spending.
The second part is probably not a big surprise. Progressives’ solution for inflation, health care, crime, sadness, and the Yankees’ bullpen is government decrees and government spending. It’s all they have.
The economic agenda Harris announced on Friday is the campaign’s first attempt at a policy platform, unless you count her advisers’ telling the press she does not believe the things she said she believed in 2019 when running for president, or in 2020 when serving as a U.S. senator. It doesn’t include a lot of numbers, but where it does, it makes sure to note that the numbers are bigger than Biden’s.
Biden proposed a $20 billion “innovation fund” for housing construction; Harris wants $40 billion. Biden wanted $25,000 in down-payment assistance for people whose parents aren’t homeowners; Harris wants $25,000 for all first-time homebuyers. Biden capped the price of insulin at $35 for seniors; Harris wants it to be $35 for everyone. On top of increasing the child tax credit to $3,600 per child, Harris also wants a $6,000 tax credit for the first year of a child’s life.
The message here is clear: For progressives who thought Biden was too moderate — it beggars belief, but they do exist — a President Harris would kick things up a notch.Harris wants the Federal Trade Commission to decide what food prices should be. She wants rules to guard against “excessive profits in food and groceries.” As capitalist pigs, we grant that our definition of “excessive” might be different from Harris’s, but the profit margin for grocery stores last year was 1.6 percent. Would she be happier if they lost money?
