Democrat presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has come up with economic ideas so awful even the pro-Kamala media are ripping them as “gimmicks” and “not sensible.”
On Friday, Vice President CacklyMcNeverBorderCzar unveiled an economic program that is straight-up looney tunes, straight out of the playbook that has destroyed the economies of Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Price controls have never worked. Nevertheless, at her poorly attended Big Policy Speech in North Carolina on Friday, she persisted…
“My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules,” Harris said.
That means the unelected bureaucrats of the Federal Trade Commission will decide what your local Winn-Dixie can charge for a loaf of bread.
Even far-left CNN’s “”””experts”””” understand that this lunacy will either 1) drive prices up even further or 2) create Soviet-style scarcity, rationing, and black markets:
…[W]hile Harris claims her proposal “will help the food industry become more competitive,” Roberts said it would do just the opposite. “It’s more likely to maintain that status quo,” he said because it would keep new competition from moving in to take advantage of the bigger profit margins — competition that could have helped lower prices in the long run.
Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration, shared Roberts’ view that anti-price gouging laws could inadvertently harm consumers. “This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality,” he told the New York Times. “There’s no upside here, and there is some downside.”
Harris is also offering $25,000 in government assistance for first-time homebuyers. Even the far-left Washington Post called this a “gimmick” — and a disastrous one:
“And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals,” Harris promised. “While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.”
The Washington Post is not impressed:
Kamala Harris’s speech Friday was an opportunity to get specific with voters about how a Harris presidency would manage an economy that many feel is not working well for them. Unfortunately, instead of delivering a substantial plan, she squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.
More:
THE FACTS: These promises could end up working at cross-purposes. By helping more Americans afford homes, the Harris proposal to subsidize down payments would almost certainly increase demand, at a time when estimates of the U.S. housing shortage already range from 3 million to as high as 7 million .
Harris’ proposal to provide tax incentives to builders to encourage more home and apartment construction would address that concern, but there are many reasons experts cite for the housing shortage, including restrictive zoning laws , higher costs for building materials, and even shortages of construction workers, which tax incentives can’t address.
If you truly want to help first-time homebuyers, you must drive down interest rates. The quickest way to drive down interest rates is to fix the economy. The quickest way to fix the economy is to drive down inflation. The quickest way to drive down inflation is to create a domestic energy bonanza. Harris won’t do that. Former President Donald Trump did do that in his first term and is promising to do it again. Energy affects the price of everything. If energy costs are low, the price of everything decreases because it becomes cheaper to manufacture, ship, and store everything.
Once inflation cools, the Federal Reserve can lower interest rates, and it is in those interest rates that homebuyers will save hundreds of thousands of dollars and decrease their monthly payment to something affordable.
Allow me to do some science…
If you take out a 30-year mortgage for $300,000 at today’s rate of 6.55 percent, your monthly mortgage payment will be $1,906, and, at the end of those 30 years, you will have paid back the original $300,000 PLUS $386,000 in interest — a total of $686,000.
Ah, but when Trump left office in January 2021, the average 30-year mortgage rate was 2.65 percent, which means that the very same $300,000 mortgage resulted in a monthly mortgage payment of just $1,208. And at the end of 30 years, you will have paid back the $300,000 PLUS $135,000 in interest — a total of $435,000.
So, under Trump, that same $300,000 mortgage costs just $435,0000 instead of the $686,000 it costs today.
Under Trump, your monthly mortgage payment was just $1,208 instead of the $1,906 it costs today.
Harris might give you $25,000, but if interest rates stay the same (and nothing she’s proposing will lower them), at the end of 30 years, even with that $25,000 in free Kamala Money, you end up paying about a quarter of a million more for your house and $700 more per month for your monthly mortgage payment.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.