Vice President Kamala Harris would prefer voters not remember her role in the economic disaster of the past three and a half years. She has distanced herself from President Biden and the agenda bearing his name, "Bidenomics."
But in this life, we are judged by our actions and the company we keep. The truth is that Harris was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate for the budget-busting packages that supercharged inflation. One of her closest advisers today, Brian Deese, is the architect of "Bidenomics."
Voters who think Harris would bring a new outlook to the White House should think again. If she is elected, the same old crew would be in charge. That means the next four years would look exactly like the last three and a half.
Prices have risen more than 20% across the board since Biden and Harris took office. The prices of many family staples have risen by more. Inflation has fallen from its peak of 9.6% in the summer of 2021, but it is still well above the Fed’s 2% target.
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Democrats and the financial press are declaring "Mission Accomplished," but this is a calamitous economic record that has left Americans worse off and resentful. The blame falls squarely on Bidenomics and its promoters, such as Harris and Deese.
Bidenomics was the belief that a government spending bonanza could juice the economy after the turmoil caused by a pandemic, lockdowns and supply-chain disruptions.
Deese, who served as Biden’s chair of the National Economic Council from 2021 to 2023, said this agenda was based on the "unapologetic acknowledgement" that government action was necessary to "correct for market failures" and create "strong and inclusive growth." He contrasted Bidenomics with Reaganomics, saying the Biden-Harris approach had "a more rational understanding of the productive and constructive role that the public sector and public investment can play."
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The original sin of Bidenomics was the American Rescue Plan, which became law in March 2021. Harris was hardly a spectator to this event. She cast the tie-breaking vote for it in the Senate. The bill injected an eye-popping $1.9 trillion into an economy already awash in easy money.
The result of this spending binge was predictable: immediate and persistent inflation.
However, the Biden administration downplayed the damage as temporary and attempted to shift the blame. In 2021, Deese claimed that "short-term inflationary pressures" were "not the issue." He later predicted that inflation would "moderate" in 2022.
In fact, inflation hit a 41-year high in 2022 and still has not returned to the 2% annual rate considered normal. To this day, Harris crows that inflation is "under 3%." They can move the goalposts, but they can’t change the facts.
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Worse still, the Biden-Harris administration used inflation as an excuse to double down on the very agenda that caused it. Concerns about inflation "underscore why it’s so important that we move forward" with the next installment of Bidenomics, Deese said in 2021.
That would turn into the perversely titled "Inflation Reduction Act," another debt bomb designed to promote green energy. Goldman Sachs estimates that the IRA’s climate subsidies cost an additional $1.2 trillion, more than three times what its supporters claimed.
To no one’s surprise but the administration’s, the result of this spending was sustained inflation. Casey Mulligan at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity found that the administration’s spending policies accounted for about half of the inflation our economy has suffered. A better name for the bill would’ve been the Inflation Acceleration Act.
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It’s little wonder Harris is running from the record of the past three and a half years. Democrats have dropped the term "Bidenomics" as swiftly as they dropped the man. Instead, Harris speaks of an "opportunity economy." Her boosters promote her approach as "fair capitalism" or "middle-class capitalism."
But if you peek behind the curtain, it’s clear Harris hasn’t learned from her mistakes in office. To the contrary, she is carrying forward the administration’s belief that spending and government are the solution, not the problem.
Deese, who should’ve been sidelined after his plans caused the worst inflation in 40 years, is back as a trusted adviser. Harris’ plans bear his fingerprints, from $25,000 government checks for homebuyers to a $6,000 payoff for new parents.
If the Biden-Harris administration wanted to move beyond "Reaganomics," they could scarcely have done a more thorough job than the policies of the last three and a half years.
Harris can run from this record of spending and inflation, but she owns it, no matter what she chooses to call it.
