If You Thought Biden Was Bad, Here’s Kamala’s Promises…

24.07.24 News

Authored by Mike Shedlock via Mishtalk.com,

Kamala Harris is off and running with a mind meld of the most progressive policies of Biden, AOC, and California governor Gavin Newsom.

Kamala Steers Left

Swing voters? Who needs ’em asks the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

On Tuesday outside of Milwaukee, Ms. Harris was introduced by an “educator” with a doctorate who said that thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration, “I had almost all of my student-loan debt forgiven.”

And if that plank of progressive big government doesn’t appeal, Ms. Harris has others. The VP said she sees a future where “every worker has the freedom to join a union,” and “every person has affordable health care, affordable child care, and paid family leave,” and “every senior can retire with dignity.”

The promise is that Uncle Sam will deliver it all. She also pledged to sign federal laws to ban “assault weapons” and override state abortion limitations.

This is a strange strategy. Ms. Harris is talking as if she’s running in the Democratic primaries and trying to beat California Gov. Gavin Newsom for her party’s presidential nod. In reality she leapfrogged that fraught step and is going straight to the general election.

In Milwaukee she sounded as if her main political task is to get Democrats enthused about finishing the pieces of Mr. Biden’s Build Back Better agenda that failed in the Democratic Senate. That means more government entitlements for healthcare, child care, and more progressive culture war.

[ZH: WSJ goes a little further…]

The main policy areas with some daylight between Biden and Harris have been healthcare, trade, climate and taxes.

As a senator, Harris supported Medicare for All, which would shift the healthcare system from private and employer-based insurance to a government-run program. But in 2020, during her run for the White House, she released a more moderate proposal to expand access to Medicare while keeping private insurance intact. And since joining Biden’s presidential ticket, Harris has backed his plan, which calls for building on the Affordable Care Act.

On trade, Harris opposed two recent major trade deals that Biden supported, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Harris was one of just 10 senators who voted against the USMCA, a renegotiated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement under the Trump administration, arguing the environmental provisions were insufficient. She also opposed TPP as a Senate candidate, arguing it didn’t do enough to protect the environment and worker regulations.

Harris’s climate record has arguably been the most liberal part of her policy portfolio. She has backed the Green New Deal and supported banning fracking. Biden ran on a fracking ban, but only for oil and gas production from federal lands. As president, Biden did more to address climate change than any of his predecessors spending $1 trillion in tax credits, grants and loans for clean energy.

Vice President Harris, seen visiting Lake Mead in Nevada in 2021, has a climate record that has arguably been the most liberal part of her policy portfolio.

As a presidential candidate, Harris proposed a full repeal of the 2017 tax cuts enacted by Trump and congressional Republicans. Biden as a candidate and as president has backed leaving in place the tax cuts for people making under $400,000 and fully paying for those extensions with new taxes on companies and high-income households.

During her campaign, she also favored raising estate taxes.

Kamala Harris Isn’t the Change Democrats Need

Also consider Kamala Harris Isn’t the Change Democrats Need

In 2016 Republican voters nominated Mr. Trump to the dismay of GOP elites who thought he was unelectable. This year, liberal pooh-bahs are pushing for Ms. Harris, and the question is whether rank-and-file Democrats have changed their minds about her.

Gallup reported this month that 55% of U.S. adults want immigration levels reduced. That’s up significantly from 41% a year ago and the highest level since 2001. “The shifts in attitudes have come after monthly illegal border crossings reached record levels late last year,” the polling company said.

Moreover, Gallup’s “monthly measure of the most important problem facing the country finds immigration consistently ranking among the top issues this year.” In Ms. Harris, Democrats are offering a candidate who was put in charge of addressing the border crisis and who failed so miserably at that task that more than half the country is now demanding a reduction in immigration.

As a senator, Ms. Harris co-sponsored a bill introduced by fellow Democrat Cory Booker that would “establish a commission to study the impact of slavery and continuing discrimination against African-Americans and make recommendations on reparation proposals for the descendants of slaves.”

Ms. Harris’s past support for reparations is likely to go over as well as her past support for giving illegal immigrants free healthcare. Do the party elites expect voters to forgive and forget all this because she’s a black woman? Ms. Harris’s sudden elevation may well trigger higher black turnout this year, but not all of it will benefit Democrats. If the polls are correct, a growing number of black voters believe that liberals like Ms. Harris care more about the welfare of illegal immigrants than they do about the welfare of black communities.

Democrats are changing the name at the top of the ticket when what’s really needed is a course correction, and someone from Ms. Harris’s wing of the party isn’t likely to provide it. Mr. Biden’s re-election bid was flailing, only partially due to his age and infirmities. He was also struggling to convince voters that his prescriptions for everything from inflation and crime to immigration and foreign policy were preferable to what could be expected in a second Trump presidency. In choosing Ms. Harris, Democrats are betting that Donald Trump will beat himself in November.

Change Where?

Kamala Harris isn’t the change voters want because she is promising no change at all.

At least she’s honest. Biden promised to be a moderate and a healer. How’d that work out?

Vote for me, I’m dumb but honest. Hmmm, could that work? Somehow I doubt that is the message voters want to hear.

Appeal to the Base?

Is the Democrat base now the extreme Progressive Left?

Regardless, it’s clear that neither Trump nor Harris has any use for swing voters.

Trump and Harris both can’t be right, but they both can be wrong. One of them will win anyway.

A Word About the Polls

Expect a bounce for Harris. But that bounce may be nothing more than a sigh of relief that Democrats saved Democracy, not from Trump, but from Biden.

With the weight of Biden gone, there will be more enthusiasm headed into the Democratic convention. Then the convention will likely add a bit of a bounce.

We won’t have any readings for a week that mean anything. But if there is no bounce at all in the polls for Harris in the next few weeks that could be a sign that it’s curtains already.

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