of The Washington Post‘s editorial board harshly criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ newly announced economic plan.
In Friday’s editorial, The Washington Post attention He said Harris had “wasted” an opportunity to present a “substantial plan” to the American people.
“Americans clearly remain anxious and angry about the rising costs of groceries, housing and even the $5.29 Big Mac,” the editorial board wrote. “Inflation has fallen significantly since its 2022 peak, ostensibly an achievement of the Biden-Harris administration, but prices remain higher than they were under the Trump administration.”
So this is a real political issue for Harris. One way to handle it might be to be forthright and tell voters that inflation soared in 2021 mainly because the pandemic disrupted supply chains, and that Federal Reserve policies supported by the Biden-Harris administration have slowed it. But the vice president chose a less blunt approach by blaming big business. Harris vowed to go after “price gouging” by grocery stores, landlords, pharmaceutical companies and other businesses by having the Federal Trade Commission enforce a vaguely defined “federal ban on price gouging.”
The article, written by the publication’s editorial board, came after Harris vowed to build 3 million new homes over four years, go after price gouging companies and give every family a $6,000 child tax credit.
The media outlet noted that Harris’ housing plan is “built on a fairly solid foundation,” but added that she focuses on the “difficulty of home buying” caused by a “shortage of housing supply.”
“Harris proposes some clever tax incentives to help make that happen,” the editorial board wrote. “But her proposed $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers risks stimulating demand and putting upward pressure on prices. Such a measure might make sense if Harris paid for it by eliminating demand-side housing subsidies like Mortgage Interest Education, which costs federal revenues roughly $30 billion a year and benefits many wealthy Americans, but she won’t do that.”
Prime Minister Harris has pledged to build 3 million homes, but nearly 1.5 million have already been built. Built That number is set to grow in 2023 alone, according to a Zillow press release.
Breitbart News reported that Harris’ promise “would actually mean a 50 percent reduction in construction.”
“Her ideas would be costly, but she insisted in her speech that she would stick to President Joe Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on households making less than $400,000 a year,” the editorial board added.
The editorial board added that Harris’ promise not to raise taxes on families earning less than $400,000 a year “does not include 80 percent of taxable income, nor does it take into account the recent surge in families earning more than $400,000.”
Report of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget Found Without a concrete plan to “raise revenue,” he said, Harris’ proposed policies would increase the federal deficit by “$1.7 trillion over 10 years.”
“Harris’s team has said the cost would be paid for by taxing corporations and high-income earners, and has said it supports the revenue-raising measures in the President’s 2025 budget, but has not offered any specific offsetting measures as part of a plan to ease the burden on American families,” the report said.
