By Bettina @Adobe Stock
Progressive Are Capitalists, But …
To progressives, you’re just a vote, warns Andy Kessler in the WSJ. What Progressives want: an active partnership between government and the private sector. To the Left, it’s “one of the most effective ways to fully unlock economic opportunity.”
No, it isn’t, scoffs Andy Kessler.
Progressives will promise you anything—housing, healthcare—but deliver a collective. They take your money and run, which invites corruption—certainly incompetence. This is why progressivism always fails.
Which Way Is the Wind Blowing
- Price controls. Candidate Harris wants to end grocery “price gouging,” a classic misdirection to shift blame for the Biden-Harris spending-induced 9% inflation. The first sign of economic illiteracy is price controls, then tariffs, money multipliers and all things Keynes. Stripped of price signals, markets lose their compass. Soviet supermarkets had price controls and bare shelves. Wage and price controls don’t work.
- Never-ending spending. The progressive plank has pushed housing subsidies, child tax credits and startup loans that will never be paid back (90% of startups fail). How will this be paid for? It doesn’t matter, to spend is to tax. Ms. Harris proposes to extend Medicare’s $2,000 cap on drug spending to everyone—a gateway drug, pardon the pun, to Medicare for all and socialized medicine. Don’t fall for it.
- Taxes up. Progressives are gunning for your hard-earned money. Their proposed highest tax rate is 39.6% from 37%. Add roughly 13.3% in California and if you do well, you’re working for the man. Corporate tax rates are to rise to 28% from 21%. They should be 15%. Taxes on realized long-term capital-gains could rise to 28% plus another 5% tax on net investment income for Obama Care, from 20% plus 3.8%. Remember, Silicon Valley blossomed with a 20% rate—more money for entrepreneurs than government. Progressives even want to tax unrealized gains for those making over $100 million. Doesn’t affect you? Just wait. In 1913 the top income-tax rate was 7% on incomes over $500,000 (about $11 million today).
- Innovation down. High capital-gains rates hurt capital formation. Innovation might still happen but much slower with less capital for growth. Artificial intelligence isn’t cheap. Stock markets don’t like inflation or the heavy hand of government. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.6% for the entire decade of the 1970s.
- Heavier regulation. The U.S. has 440 federal agencies that mangle favored industries like autos. More agencies may be coming as progressives are gung-ho on regulating AI. Red tape is classic progressive project poison. Tim Walz, whom former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty called “Bernie Sanders in hunting gear,” declared that Minnesota’s Line 3 oil pipeline needed a “social permit.” Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy called for warning labels on social media. This is the kind of progressive pointlessness that kills innovation. Want warning labels? Slap one on K-12 education.
- Federal housing control. Ms. Harris wants to add three million new homes. Does this mean blocky Soviet-style housing for everyone? There’s already a glut of homes, especially in the South. This is a progressive power grab to take away local zoning control. Ask Californians about mandatory Accessory Dwelling Units to expand housing—especially low-income housing—in neighborhoods and near train stations. The state decides, not local zoning laws.
- Unity with unions. Progressives are pro-union. Instead of “do more with less” it’s “do less with more workers at higher pay.” Then consumers pay more. The International Longshoremen’s Association fights automation and even fought bar codes in ports. Union bosses love progressives—though it’s interesting that the rank and file of the Teamsters are increasingly fed up with progressive policies.
Americans are too aware of Donald Trump flaws and the risks they pose. But are voters willing to ignore Kamala Harris, with her proclivity toward progressive’s singular mindedness, with, as the WSJ warns, its “regulatory coercion, cultural imperialism, economic statism, and desire to strip judicial independence?”
Andy Kessler is hopeful America, if Harris wins, will survive a Kamala Harris progressive control, but he cautions, “watch your wallet.”
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