Harris and Walz want more government spending of your money and control of your lives

(Photo Credit – @KamalaHarris on X. Campaign photo. 2024)

Solving the nation’s considerable economic issues is no easy task, particularly since these problems have been caused largely by excessive government spending led by Democrats and a candidate hand-picked by a tiny number of Democrat party bosses.

Vice-President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz want to continue this line of thinking and acting.

Harris and Walz’s so-called “fixes” will exacerbate inflation, continue to grow the national debt and scarcity in the market.

We have already heard from Democrats that a system of price controls is being contemplated. She disguises what is sure to be an unpopular policy by saying it is in response to price-gouging without demonstrating the least bit of evidence this exists today in any sector of the economy.

The left argues that this is sensible because many states have such laws. Most states have enacted laws similar to Virginia’s designed to protect people who have fallen victim to a disaster.

“Upon finding that during a time of disaster a supplier is selling, leasing, or licensing, or offering to sell, lease, or license, a necessary good or service within the area for which the state of emergency is declared at such an unconscionable price…,” according to the Code of Virginia.

Broader price controls do not work. It was tried by President Richard Nixon in the 1970’s (though for a short period) and more recently in Venezuela under President Nicolás Maduro and it failed. The Harris-Walz plan has been roundly criticized by not only economists but members of both parties, and even the Washington Post (which is clearly in the Harris-Walz camp).

Do not be surprised if the Harris-Walz campaign seeks ways to back out of this proposal, at least publicly for PR reasons, or attempt to redefine it and lament that it is badly misunderstood.

We have seen that it produces scarcity, diminishes innovation, invention, and business risk-taking. Businesses will simply not produce goods at a continual loss.

Many businesses, including the grocers of America, operate on small profit margins at about 1 to 3 percent as it is --- why hobble their productivity with a senseless drive to give Congress more of your money?

Candidates Harris and Walz are also seemingly intent on driving business off our shores. A proposal to raise the corporate tax from 23 to 28 percent will make business in the U.S. less competitive and cause businesses to look for other places to set up headquarters.

Another Democrat proposal is to give first-time home buyers a $25,000 check. It simply does not take long for home sellers to note this and simply tack on that much more before putting houses on the market. See college tuition so-called “forgiveness” as an example.

Not incidentally, the $25,000 also comes from you, the American taxpayer, adding to the debt while not actually helping the intended recipients. Again, see college tuition forgiveness as an example.

Perhaps the most egregious overreach in the history of taxation, the Biden-Harris administration has floated is the idea of taxing unrealized capital gains. While the intent of the new tax is ostensibly to punish the very rich (who Democrats deem worthy of scorn), we know that such schemes eventually have a way of working into the mainstream of the middle class --- because that’s where the real money exists.  The thirst for taxpayer money is rarely quenched. 

Regulations that come with each proposal increase government control. This hinders the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer, adding costs at every stage. While no one is suggesting a total end of regulations, the creation on new regulations should be carefully weighed as to the effects.

Members of Congress must work to reduce regulations and stop gimmicky programs that spend your money with results that are detrimental to our economy and your dwindling paycheck.

America’s brilliance in past years built the most powerful and nimble economic engine the world has ever seen. Why tamper with that?

One more comment on the debt. While the debt is hard to grasp in its enormity, consider this: Just the service on the interest of the debt is greater than what we spend on national defense. The debt crowds out necessary spending and gives our presidents and congresses, now and even more so in the future, fewer options while making us less safe in many ways.

Reducing the size and scope of government and government control, thus spending less of your money, must be the aim of any new administration and legislature in our federal government.

Washington is notorious for forgetting the idea that its purpose in the legislative and executive branches, primarily, is to defend your rights, not create laws and regulations that by design produce limitations on those rights.  

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James Hutton is a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army. Follow him on X @jehutton.