It’s Kamala!

In my last article two weeks ago (“The Thing You Can’t Unsee”) I said that Biden would go and he did. Biden immediately endorsed Kamala Harris. Most Democratic leaders and potential rivals quickly capitulated to Ms. Harris. She’s the Democratic presidential candidate.

I also said that based on polls, middle-roaders, about 70% of the electorate, consider themselves conservative or mostly conservative. I wished for a moderate Democrat candidate to oppose Trump, but that was shot down after Joe endorsed Kamala. 

The New York Times agrees with me: “Ever since Donald J. Trump won the presidency, Democrats have stuck to a winning electoral playbook: From congressional races to presidential ones, they’ve nominated well-liked, moderate candidates who could appeal to nearly any voter who disliked Mr. Trump and his allies.”

Kamala is a leftist Progressive. 

I’ve reviewed her career and have a pretty good idea what she will propose for her policies. During the election, like Joe, she will try to appeal to centrist voters. But, like Joe, in office she will fall back on the Progressive policies she has supported during her entire political career.

She achieved political prominence due to her gender and race. And Willie Brown. She identifies mostly as Black and secondarily as Asian Indian. I’m not belittling her achievements as a law student, prosecutor, California Attorney General, senator, and VP. But she was at the right place at the right time.

I’m sure Kamala did well at my alma mater UC Hastings College of the Law. She passed the California bar which used to be one of the toughest in the nation when I took it. Then she worked in district attorney offices in Alameda and San Francisco as a prosecutor which isn’t an easy niche.

During 1994-1995 she and Willie Brown dated. Willie, also a Hastings grad, was the most powerful politician in San Francisco. They lasted only a year but Willie appointed her to some cush state commissions and continued to support and mentor her. 

There is a lot of right wing stuff floating around about her being some kind of Manchurian Candidate commie. I have reviewed some of this material and it is untrue. Since the assertions trace back to the radical ‘60s when I lived in San Francisco, I had a lot of experience with radicalism in those days. It’s easy to create an alternate history by connecting dots that don’t exist and weave Kamala into it. But it is a fantasy. If you doubt this, contact me and I will supply you with the reality.

I don’t mean to claim that Kamala is incompetent. As a graduate of Howard and Hastings, she has solid academic credentials. And she is smart and ambitious. In an era dominated by white politicians, she took advantage of her gender and race to boost herself into political prominence. 

The problem with Kamala is that she is a Progressive and those policies will be bad for our economy and the welfare of our citizens. Welfare statism is at the top of her list. During the 2020 presidential campaign she was labeled as the most economically illiterate of all candidates.

Her policies are even to the left of Biden. By some estimates they would require $40 trillion of new spending over the next decade. Those programs include universal healthcare (i.e., Medicare-like government run healthcare) and the Green New Deal described as a “new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era.” 

She wants taxes on corporations higher than what Biden proposed, relief of student loan debt, increased death taxes, tax cuts for “the people that work and tax increases on the rich,” a Rent Relief Act which gives renters a tax credit, and national rent control. She strongly supported the American Rescue Plan of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, both being wasteful cornucopias of pork, handouts, and subsidies, and the Infrastructure and Investment Act and the Chips and Science Act, both are what economists call “industrial policy” (your tax dollars go to companies that are politically favored by the government). And there is more.

The spending will increase the federal deficit and cause higher interest rates, more inflation, and a weaker dollar. Ditto with high taxes on corporations, the entities that create jobs. She wants confiscatory taxes on the “rich” such as entrepreneurs who have made our lives better. I suspect a wealth tax will be proposed. There will be more regulations on businesses that will slow the economy and lead to unemployment as higher operating costs cause cutbacks. Government subsidies to businesses will, if history gives us any guidance, lead to wasted capital as bureaucrats make political choices rather than wise investment choices. It’s not hyperbole to say it’s the path to Greek-like bankruptcy.

Instead of hurling insults about candidate Harris, it would be more effective to criticize her policies which would lead us to welfare statism and failure.