Kamala's run: plenty of platitudes but few specifics

Plus: 'Will the Biden Dead-Enders Admit They Were Wrong?'

Kamala Harris. -Harris/Walt campaign

As political junkies gear up for the Democratic National Convention, which begins tonight with what will probably be President Biden’s goodbye speech, our thoughts at “Red Meat” turn to —what else? — Kamala Harris’ laugh. Evidently, her “cackle” bothers Donald Trump and his supporters. Maybe Trump is jealous because he never laughs and neither did his own father. The reason, his niece Mary says, is that guffawing is a moment when you briefly lose control, which makes the ex-president feel “vulnerable.”

As for yours truly, I’d rather laugh whenever I feel like it (my daughter and Dana Carvey do a good job of making me chuckle). More importantly, though, it would probably be better for Trump to look at Harris’ actual policies, and there’s plenty there to chew on. Earlier this week, Vice President Harris unveiled a set of policy proposals and priorities she’d like to pursue in a first term.

I consider that a positive step in her evolution because, at this writing, the Harris-Walz campaign website is completely devoid of issues. There are, however, no fewer than eight donation buttons of various denominations on the home page alone. By the way, “donate” seems to be a dirty word in campaigns these days. The preferred term is “chip in,” which sounds as painless as throwing 20 bucks on the table to help your drinking buddies pay the bar tab after last call (yes, it’s been along time since I hung out in bars).

As you might expect, the emphasis in Harris’ recent announcement is on the economy, an area where the Biden administration is seen as vulnerable. Here are some pretty good summaries of her proposals from the Washington Post, PBS and the Wall Street Journal (free links).

The policy-free Harris-Walz website features this sharp-looking graphic on the home page.

The lists include proposals on housing, taxes and medical costs. In no particular order, Harris wants to subsidize the construction of affordable housing to the tune of $40 billion, cancel $7 billion in medical debt for up to 3 million eligible Americans, sharply expand the child tax credit, offer a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers and eliminate federal taxes on tips — all in a effort to “build up the middle class.”

Trump had previously vowed to exempt tips from federal taxes. Did Harris steal his proposal? Maybe, but this questionable idea really strikes me as a naked appeal to voters in Nevada, a touristy swing state where there are more wait staff and bell hops than you can shake a stick at.

It is not exactly clear where she expects to get the money to pay for these programs. How much will they cost? She does not even offer a guess, but someone else did. Per the Washington Post:

… estimates released Friday by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) show that, all told, the plan would increase deficits by $1.7 trillion over a decade. That cost would grow to $2 trillion if Harris’s housing policies — which the campaign says are slated to last only four years — were made permanent … Roughly $1.2 trillion of that bill would come from an expansion of the child tax credit, according to the CRFB.

If it’s fair for progressives to ask how tax cuts disproportionately benefiting the wealthy during the Bush 41 years would be paid for, then it certainly is fair to ask Harris how she would pay for the dramatic expansion of the child tax credit. After all, the campaign has pledged not to raise taxes on families earning less than $400,000 per year.

The campaign says its plan would be paid for through taxes on corporations and some of America’s highest earners, along with other revenue raisers in Biden’s budget. But there were few other specifics as of Friday, leaving open questions on the final price tag and the risks of more inflation.

So no problem. The rich will simply pay more? Sorry, but I don’t believe it. If these programs are enacted, taxpayers with sub-$400k incomes like us will have to “chip in” as well. I’m not necessarily opposed to these new programs and tax advantages, but they’re just part and parcel of the politicians’ playbook — and it’s a bipartisan problem: let’s propose new programs, be vague about how we will pay for them or, in the case of tax cuts, tell gullible voters that those cuts will pay for themselves through a resulting boom in economic activity.

Indeed, that is precisely what Harris said during a rare unscripted moment Sunday evening with a reporter who asked, “You unveiled your economic policies last week. Can you explain how you’re going to pay for those?” Starts at 0:53”:

Harris said her economic plan, specifically the proposal for first-time home-buyers, would “pay for itself” by increasing the “property tax base” that funds local public schools. She seemed to suggest that economic activity spurred by the expansion of the child tax credit, would stimulate a “return on investment.”

Where have we heard this before, you might ask? During the Reagan and Bush 43 administrations, supply-siders told us that across-the-board cuts in income-tax rates would generate so much economic activity that the resulting boom would more than compensate for the loss in revenue to the treasury. We were all fooled because deficits rose sharply thereafter. Why? If the cuts caused revenue increases, they weren’t enough for a simple reason: Congress will never restrain spending because spending is how its members get reelected.

I’ve saved the best part for last. Harris has vowed to send a bill to Congress (free link) that places federal limits on price increases for food producers and grocers. Touted as a “anti-price-gouging” measure, it would essentially place some form of price controls on groceries. How would that work, you ask? The Federal Trade Commission would set the controls and enforce them.

Advice to the Harris campaign: if your opponent falsely accuses you of being a “communist,” don’t float proposals that make you sound like you are. Price controls, if that’s what the proposal could properly be called, simply don’t work. Ask Richard Nixon, who imposed a 90-day freeze on all prices and wages in the U.S. in August of 1971. When it ended, the stock market tanked and inflation rose sharply, ushering in several years of stagflation, or the paradoxical combination of high inflation and slow growth.

For a better takedown of Harris’ anti-grocery price-gouging proposal, look to the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell, who explains what a terrible idea it is better than I ever could. And no, I didn’t steal her line about communism either. But you know what they say about great minds. Hah!

Harris’ defenders insist she never used the phrase “price controls” in her proposal. That’s true. For that matter, she never actually defined what constitutes “excessive.” She mentions “clear rules of the road” but doesn’t define those either. How else to control price gouging without actual controls?

‘Hey, can we circle back to when many supposedly intelligent people were making one of the most obviously ridiculous political arguments of all time?’

I leave you with the following thought. As momentum built, after his disastrous June debate performance, for Biden to step aside, there was a significant group of Biden supporters who insisted it was all but traitorous to replace the big guy and that the only path to victory was to stay the course. After Biden finally bailed in favor of Harris, the Democratic Party has been infused with a new energy that has seen the party’s new presidential nominee pulling even with Donald Trump and in some cases leading in key swing states. Victory now looks within its grasp, whereas a month ago it was fair to say that Trump was considered the favorite.

Where are these never-dump-Biden people now? They were not only wrong, but spectacularly wrong. Will they ever acknowledge it?

• When Will the Biden Dead-Enders Admit They Were Wrong? Joshua A. Cohen, The Nation