By Valeriia @Adobe Stock
Candidates offer Hallmarks of Populism
Economic policy has a widening gulf between voters and economists. The public seems to have a deepening distrust of experts and institutions:
“The American public, they’re unhappy with stuff,” argues a University of California, Berkeley professor, who served in President Barack Obama’s administration.
“We’ve done a terrible job of educating the American people,” laments a center-right economist at Harvard University.
Not Taxing Tips on Service Workers
How about not taxing service workers? Some report that as much as 4/5ths of voters like it. The plan, suggested by both Trump and Harris, is to stop tipping service workers. (“preposterous,” scorns RCY). According to Mr. Kiernan, a reporter for the WSJ, 87% of economists disagree with most voters.
Why not stop taxing tips on service workers? It would arbitrarily benefit a small subset of lower-wage workers, distort the labor market, widen the budget deficit, and create incentives to game the system.
Look, and you’ll recognize at least one irony in the 2024 presidential campaigns: Both candidates majored in economics as undergrads, reports Paul Kiernan in the WSJ.
Trump in 1968 received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Harris in 1986 received a Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics from Howard University, where she headed the Economics Society.
Not surprisingly, Trump and Harris offer proposals that the public likes, even if the candidates might know the economics are dubious. Here’s one unforgivable argument: Trump tends to offer simple-sounding solutions to complex problems (a hallmark of populism.), which encourages his rivals to do the same.
Trade, a Bedrock Philosophy
In another example: Mr. Trump is proposing across-the-board tariffs of up to 20% on imported goods. “Great idea,” says slightly more (57%) than those who disapprove. By contrast, “100% of the economists, who span the political spectrum, admit “strongly” opposing the idea:” Trade allows a country to focus on what it is good at. Tariffs don’t consider environmental or currency manipulation, not to mention slave labor.
From a conservative-leaning economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business:
“When you put a tariff on something artificially, you’re going to make things more expensive, and if it’s an input, like steel for example, then you’re going to make the downstream companies that are using steel less competitive.”
A New Low in Rotten Policies
A Harvard economist and 2007 Nobel laureate warns:
“I also blame politicians who know better for not trying harder.”
The Harvard economist can’t recall an election cycle that reeked so badly of rotten policy.
“I think this may be a new low,” he said.
We have two candidates, one of whom refuses to tell voters where she stands. Kamala Harris seems to have no understanding of how things work in the real world. And it shows.
No Improvement for the Poor
Harris claimed (without substantiating) that Biden’s economic policy, which rocket-fueled inflation (passed with Harris’s tie-breaking vote), capped the annual cost of prescription drugs for seniors at $2,000. She also claimed it cut childhood poverty by more than 50%. Americans then paid for that with a four-decade-high 9% inflation rate. (“9%? Phony rate,” jeers RCY, who is still sitting next to me.) “How does this help the poor?”
A Short Economic/Inflation Course
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output,” sagely offers Milton Friedman.
Inflation: Trump Needs to Explain
What the media refuses to admit: When the government prints money (e.g.: Bidenomics legislation, for which Kamala cast the tie-breaking vote), we get inflation. It’s that simple, Ms. Harris.
Harris, responsible for helping elevate inflation with her tie-breaking vote, now wants to control the price of groceries. But why stop at groceries, Ms. Harris, when the wide world offers much more than a narrow grocery aisle in Kroger?
What Will Keep the Lights On?
Forget groceries, for now. Let’s consider drug prices, which will lead to a shortage of drugs and prohibit any new discoveries. And just wait ‘till Americans get their electric/heating bills this coming winter. Won’t we all have fun sitting in the dark and the cold?
When it comes to fracking, which Kamala should Americans believe?
- Kamala #1: the one who promised to ban fracking outright when she ran for president in 2019?
- Kamala #2: the one who’s running for president now and says she opposes a fracking ban?
In Pennsylvania, Arthur Stewart, owner of a fracking business, worries about Kamala Harris version #3:
“She’s the one who spent four years being cheerleader-in-chief for an administration that has tried to regulate oil and gas extraction to death, moving toward a fracking ban in everything but name. That’s the Kamala Harris we’re most worried about, because she’s half of a White House with a record of attacking American energy from every angle.
Like so many coastal elites, Ms. Harris appears to have zero knowledge that fracking is a safe and proven technology, perfected over decades, which has already helped lower America’s carbon emissions. Nor does there seem to be any appreciation that fracked natural gas is essential to America’s food supply, since it’s the feedstock for nearly all the world’s fertilizer. (editor’s note: this is a big deal.)
According to a March Commonwealth Foundation poll, 82% of Pennsylvanians are worried that affordable energy is slipping away. Pennsylvania needs fracking to keep utility bills low.
What (Harris) has done as vice president has already hurt us enough. … we’re terrified of what she will do if elected president, because it may be the death of us.”
A Worsening Situation
If Ms. Harris simply maintains the policies of the past four years, continues Mr. Stewart in the WSJ, “fracking will become harder to do and companies like mine will do less of it.”
As (Harris) rolls out new policies—perhaps based on the ill-defined “environmental justice’ goal cited in the meager policy documents on her campaign website—the situation will get even worse.”
Stop Greedy Corporations
Trump should remind voters, especially Americans (who happen to own stocks) and union members (who happen to have pensions), that Veep Harris (President Joe Biden’s pick) just can’t wait to tax them.
Who owns corporations? Americans do. Americans in total have 61% in the stock market: 49% of people of color own stock, 66 % of Republicans and 64% of Democrats own stock. That’s a total of 162 million Americans who own stocks, reports Daniel Oliver in American Greatness.
Kamala Harris also wants to give first-time home buyers $25,000. How will that not inflate prices? Prospective sellers, eager to reap some of that $25,000 windfall, will artificially inflate the price of the houses being sold to first-time buyers.
The Ugly Facts of Life
Which brings us to a more troublesome issue: the estimated cost of Kamala Harris’s “first-time home buyers” proposal is $175 billion. How will this be paid? The printing press, which leads to inflation, or higher taxes (more money = more government damage). Either way, Kamala Harris is screwing Americans.
Kamala’s Disdain for Voters
Why is Harris being allowed to get away with not explaining the scams she is proposing? She hasn’t begun to prove that she has abandoned her life-long progressive credentials.
During Donald Trump’s four years, Americans enjoyed a superior foreign policy, economy, border, and security than during the Biden-Harris term.
Since the media will not, the former president needs to clarify the economic facts of life to voters and what Kamal Harris intends to do to America.
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