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The Stories That Matter About Money and Politics in the Race to the White House
Democrats rushed to defend Kamala Harris’s new economic plans on Sunday, amid criticism that they are merely gimmicks that are ineffective at combating inflation.
The Democratic presidential candidate outlined her economic vision at an event in North Carolina on Friday, promising to ban price gouging and offer new tax breaks for families and home buyers. But some of the measures have met with a cool response from economists and Democratic allies, complicating the vice president’s bid to win voters’ trust on economic and cost-of-living issues.
An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted last week and released Sunday showed Harris holding a six-point lead over former President Donald Trump. But it put Trump ahead by nine points when it came to who voters trusted on the economy and inflation. That contrasted with the Vscek Michigan Ross poll conducted earlier this month, which showed more Americans trusting Harris to handle the economy.
Harris’s top allies took to Sunday morning TV to defend the policies, with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear telling CBS that the policies were aimed at “making sure capitalism stays within bounds.”
“It’s not about trying to fix prices, it’s just about making sure the economy works the way it should,” he said.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker appeared on CNN, saying “you’ve heard companies talk about how they’ve raised prices even beyond what would be the inflationary amount… so I think it’s not unreasonable to [Harris] to say that the federal government should do what many states have already done, which is to focus on raising prices.”
Asked by NBC whether Harris’ policies were smart, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer responded, “People are paying too much attention to what’s been published.”
In an editorial, the Washington Post, which has supported Democrats for the presidency for decades, said that Harris “rather than present a substantive plan, has squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.”
Jason Furman, who chaired Barack Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers, told The New York Times that price-raising measures “are not a sensible policy” and could have supply-side implications.
“I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and not reality. There’s no silver lining here, and there’s a silver lining,” he said.
Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff told CNN he didn’t think corporate price speculation had “that much to do” with inflation. “I hope he comes back, he had some good ideas, some conflicting ideas. This was a horrible idea,” he said.
Trump attacked Harris’s economic policies at a rally in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania on Saturday, saying she was advocating “communist price controls” that would lead to “food shortages, rationing, starvation and dramatically higher inflation.”
However, the former president has also faced criticism from his own party for not staying on message. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told CNN that “almost every other Republican candidate would win this race by 10 points… if you’re talking about these economic issues.”
