“It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is,” Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote last week.
“It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food,” explaining Democrat nominee Kamala Harris’s economic program. “Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC [Federal Trade Commission] would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.”
Rampell, certainly no conservative, concluded by suggesting to the Vice-President, “If your opponent claims you’re a ‘communist,’ maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.”
The Post’s editorial board also noted that “every campaign makes expensive promises” but “[e]ven adjusting for the pandering standards of campaign economics” her speech “ranks as a disappointment.”
But as destructive as price controls would be, the Post’s Aaron Blake points out that, according to various polls, blaming big corporations for price gouging appears to strike a chord with the public.*
“It’s not just a potent boogeyman,” Blake explains, “it’s a potent boogeyman that deflects blame from the administration that has been in charge these past 3½ years.”
So is Vice-President Harris really a communist or just a run-of-mill blame-shifting politician?
Well, sadly, those two things are not mutually exclusive. She could be [shudder] both.
So, if you are scared that former President Trump will usher in authoritarianism, should he prevail this November, you now know that, instead, you can choose communism.
That is, the Democrats’ excuse-making, blame-shifting, market-killing standard bearer.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Though, the polling shows the public views “increasing oil production” as more effective in bringing prices down. Don’t hold your breath for Ms. Harris and Democrats to endorse that.
Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly
—
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
1 reply on “Commie Kamala?”
Indeed, no one can Save Democracy™ by voting for politicians who simply have no limiting principle short of logical exhaustion. Harris and Walz are totalitarians, full stop.
But I will also note that none of, each with his or her single vote, can decide who will be the next President; the margin of victory will be in the thousands or more. All that any one of us can do is increase or decrease the margins; and the sole effect of changes in the margins is to drive behavior after the present election, as politicians spend present political capital or seek to acquire future political capital.
Rational voters, then, either vote for candidates whom they truly like (not for a hoped lesser of the evils) or they just refuse to vote.