Tax cutters always win. Tax hikers always lose, and that's the substance of the riff. The Wall Street Journal editorial today reads, "In her campaign debut, Kamala Harris steers left."
Well, nobody should be shocked at this. She talked about student loan cancelations, new entitlements for health care, child care, seniors and more progressive culture war banning guns, overriding state abortion limits, of course, tax hikes, unsuccessful earners and businesses all.
Let's not forget the ban on oil and gas fracking. All this befits a good, solid, left, liberal progressive from San Francisco, a big-government California socialist. This is at the very beginning of the campaign.
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Now, here's one I nearly forgot: "Kamala-flation." Hat tip to Breitbart's John Carney: "How Harris caused inflation by casting decisive votes for Biden's economic agenda." Very important! Vice President Harris cast the decisive votes for Joe Biden's two biggest and most inflationary spending sprees.
In March 2021, she cast the tie-breaking vote for the so-called "American Rescue Plan." That's a $1.9 trillion special, and that's what launched a 9% inflation rate and still today, the long tail of that inflation surge has caused an affordability crisis, with cumulative inflation up 20% and a more than 4% drop in average weekly wages for middle-class working folks, but even that was not enough for the Bidens’ insatiable spending appetites.
In August 2022, Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the $1.2 trillion misnamed "Inflation Reduction Act," and judging by her first days on the campaign trail, there's more of that kind of overspending and borrowing should she ever be elected president.
Of course, she never talks about economic growth or making the economic pie grow larger. Those are two staples of Mr. Trump's economic platform. In fact, the contrast between Trump's tax cuts, deregulation and "drill, baby drill" and Kamala Harris' tax hikes, big government spending and war on fossil fuels couldn't be any clearer. On these economic issues, Mr. Trump has a huge advantage. I've always believed that tax cutters win, while tax hikers lose. Just call it "growthier."
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the July 25, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."