A Preview of Kamalanomics?

August 7, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

As I wrote in both 2020 and earlier this year, Kamala Harris is worse than Joe Biden on economic issues.

Heck, based on an analysis of spending proposals in the 2020 race, she’s even worse than Bernie Sanders.

What worries me most is that she openly supports (click here for the video proof) the radical view that there should be equality of outcomes.

This is not simply a rejection of the classical liberal position of equality of opportunity.

This goes way beyond Bernie-style tax-and-spend redistribution.

It implies outright confiscation.

I have no idea if Harris really believes what she said in the video. Perhaps she simply read a script prepared by an over-zealous and economically illiterate campaign worker (I hope the same thing when contemplating some of Trump’s silly ideas).

I certainly hope that’s the case. But just in case she means what she said, let’s look at a column by someone who is serious about leftist ideology. Here are some excerpts from an article by C.J. Polychroniou.

Economic inequality is the scourge of the 21st century. …the super-rich can be blamed for many of the most serious ills confronting societies in the twentieth-first century. The only consequential question here is this: what can be done about it then?

One of the most frequent responses to the problem of rising inequality is a call for the implementation of a wealth tax. …but can it really address, let alone solve, the problem of inequality? The answer is an unqualified “no.”                                           

…To effectively address economic inequality, we must identify the root cause of the problem…as the renowned progressive economist James K. Boyce recently put it “nobody ‘earns’ a billion dollars. …we need much more than wealth and corporate taxation. …We should also set a cap on extreme wealth. There is no social value for having billionaires. We should abolish the superrich.

This guy obviously is a nut, but it’s worth noting that his idea isn’t as radical as what Harris endorsed. He’s simply saying to get rid of the rich (however defined). But that presumably means there would be some people with more income than other people.

If we take her seriously, Harris wants to get rid of all income differences.

I’ll close with the observation that such policies would produce total economic misery. I shared a satirical article on this topic back in 2015, but let’s hope it never becomes a reality. Simply stated, the Harris agenda is a recipe for making everyone equal. Equally destitute.

P.S. For a humorous explanation of why the redistribution/class-warfare agenda is so destructive, here’s the politically correct version of the fable of the Little Red Hen.

And the socialism-in-the-classroom example, which may or may not be an urban legend, makes a similar point. As does the famous parable about taxes and beer.