Kamala Harris has an Astonishing Ignorance of the Economy
Sometime after Bill Clinton left office, Democrats became so obsessed with identity politics that economic policy became a tool to further their political aims rather than a means to enhance the lives of ordinary Americans.
From Obama to Biden, it’s been an astounding display of incompetence and a disturbing lack of understanding of capitalism and how it can be optimized for the benefit of American businesses and citizens. However, despite their deficiencies, Kamala Harris makes Obama and Biden look like the great Arthur Laffer by comparison.
Remember the Bad Old Days?
As America was finally waking up to the reality the 2008 Great Recession was going to be really bad, the electorate decided to throw in with Barack Obama. In hindsight, it’s hard to argue with the national rationale at that time considering the epic failure of George Bush in failing to comprehend, let alone deal with, the subprime mortgage crisis.
Obama was a nice enough guy, but the best that can be said about his economic policy was that he allowed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to make the critical decisions that avoided a complete meltdown of the global economy and a subsequent Depression.
Throughout Obama’s two terms, the economy staggered under the weight of increasingly large budget deficits, economic initiatives designed more to promote social reform than economic growth, and onerous regulations that punished businesses and negatively impacted their profitability.
It’s why the growth rate under Obama’s eight-year presidency averaged 1.9%. By contrast, growth under Trump averaged 2.5%, and that includes the devastating impact of the pandemic. By stifling the energy industry, enacting Dodd-Frank, promoting green energy subsidies, appeasing China and creating a government subsidized healthcare system, Obama created an economy that limped along in a kind of Jimmy Carter type malaise.
It took Donald Trump to re-energize American enterprise and get the economy back on track. Under Trump, America gained 7 million new jobs, the average annual income of middle-class families improved by $6,000, minority unemployment reached an all-time low, new small business openings reached an all-time high, and income rose in every single metro area in the U.S. for the first time in three decades.
It took Kamala Harris just a couple of years to undo most of Trump’s achievements. In fact, thanks to Harris’s cumulative 20% inflation, the average American family has lost $7,200 annually since she took office in 2021.
Just the Beginning of More Misery
Perhaps the worst news is that Harris is just getting started. Untethered from senile Joe Biden, Harris is now free to unleash her Marxist vision on a largely unsuspecting public.
In a clever twist, Harris is doing her best at hiding her most radical and destructive policies. For example, in a kind of wink-wink, nod-nod signal to her most ardent leftist followers, the Harris administration has ramped up oil production to record levels.
How can that be? Where are the psychotic environmentalist extremists protesting in the streets and demanding Harris shut down oil production to save the planet as they would if Trump was president?
They’re quiet because they’re in on it. They’re willing to go along with this temporary blip so the masses are deluded into believing gas prices have stabilized. Their silence comes in exchange for a promise, perhaps unspoken, that once Harris wins, it’s $10/gallon with a bullet, baby.
Naturally, thanks to the past four years, we’re all painfully aware of the price we pay, literally and figuratively, when leftists have control over our energy infrastructure. If Harris wins, take it to the bank that oil production will be curtailed, and we’ll return to the insane policies of solar and wind, which will never account for more than a third of our total energy consumption, that is, unless we want to return to the middle ages.
However, Harris’s appalling lack of comprehension of economics doesn’t stop there. When you have essentially been a DEI hire your entire life and never held a job in the private sector, your view of the economy becomes warped, and you sign off on truly horrific ideas.
Unrealized Capital Gains Tax: At the top of the list of terrible ideas is the unrealized capital gains tax, which would be enacted in tandem with new, higher realized capital gains rates. Remember, Democrats are always after your money, and it galls them that your IRA and 401k just sit there growing tax free. So, understand, that is the objective. Americans hold $22 trillion in their IRAs and 401k’s, and leftists want that money. The true intent of the Harris plan is hidden behind the popular leftist pledge to soak the rich, so right now, her unrealized capital gains tax proposal would only affect those with a net worth of $100 million. But you know the schtick. Once they succeed in implementing a new tax, leftists always make sure the threshold goes down and down and down until it affects everyone with any money saved up.
However, Harris’s stunningly naïve approach to the economy fails to take into account the Wall Street element and how it affects Main Street. When, for example, Elon Musk recognizes that the unrealized capital gains tax burden on his $120 billion in stock and options will be taxed at 25% once Kamala Harris is sworn in, what do you imagine he would do?
You’re right, he would start selling to take advantage of a lower realized capital gains tax rate before the new government takes office. And it wouldn’t just be Musk. Other billionaires and institutional investors would also be looking to sell, and the cascading impact of these large shareholders dumping massive holdings would begin to impact the small investors and their 401k’s. In a very short period, panic selling would commence, and the stock market would suffer a catastrophic decline, guaranteed. That would almost instantly impact Main Street and usher in a severe recession.
But remember, Kamala Harris thinks this is a great idea.
$25,000 for First Time Home Buyers
Democrats love free money giveaways to undeserving people, no matter how negatively they impact the deficit or the value of our currency. To address housing affordability, Harris wants to give new homebuyers $25,000 toward the purchase of their first home.
What a wonderful idea, except…
Her proposal would cost the federal government $200 billion over four years, which means more borrowing and higher deficits. Worse, the end net result of the program would be a zero-sum gain. Once home sellers knew that new buyers had an extra $25,000 to spend, they would simply raise the price of their houses by the same amount or more. In essence, home prices would skyrocket, and affordability would be further out of reach. This doesn’t take into account the galling notion of illegal aliens receiving $25k of your money to buy a house. Again, the inability to think through a proposal to consider the unintended consequences exposes Harris as an economic lightweight.
Price Controls
Summoning her best inner Richard Nixon, Harris has chosen to vilify food producers, distributors and retailers as the cause of food inflation. Her idea is to impose price controls on food to ensure prices don’t go up. While this idea will appeal to hardened Marxists, it should scare the hell out of everyone else because the inevitable outcome is extreme inflation, fewer brand choices and empty shelves.
The reality is that if you’re in business, and you can’t get a reasonable return on your investment, you will probably downsize or leave the industry altogether. No business owner I know wants to pay for the privilege of owning their business, especially if dealing with annoying bureaucrats telling you that you’re charging too much is now part of everyday life.
Either Harris simply doesn’t understand that today’s high food prices are the result of her stifling regulations and preventable supply chain disruptions, along with the geopolitical events in Ukraine that she fostered, or she is economically ignorant.
I’ll let you decide.
In This Election, You Better Understand What You’re Buying
To be fair, Harris and her handlers have done a masterful job of separating her fake image from her real self. She has spent a whole lot of tech oligarch money to gaslight you into believing she had nothing to do with the mess she’s created over the last four years. Voters just need to give her another four years because this time she’s really on top of it.
This is a note to middle class America. You elect this person because you don’t like Trump, or you want to be on the “right side” of history, get ready for some of the worst economic pain you have ever experienced in your lifetime.
You’ll be longing for the bad old days.
