If Kamala Harris wants price controls, here's where she should start
We need both presidential candidates to be serious about reducing what the government spends
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}With nearly $2 trillion deficits over each of the last two fiscal years, and a large swath of Americans who are struggling to afford the basic costs of living, Kamala Harris is desperately trying to distance herself from her own track record.
This track record includes not only being the co-pilot of the Biden-Harris administration, but the actual deciding vote on a whole host of policies that stoked inflation and expanded spending and the deficits.
Looking to deflect blame, Harris has pivoted to "greedy corporations," a ploy that has been widely debunked.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
But what has been even more widely panned is her stated solution – that is stopping "price gouging," which ostensibly means price controls.
Notice how there's never a proposed cap on government spending. We need price controls on government spending, not on the private sector.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Based on the White House’s own famous Table 1.1, which summarizes government receipts, outlays and the resulting deficits or surpluses, the U.S. government is projected to take in more than $5 trillion in "revenue" (aka, mostly taxes) for fiscal year 2024.
That $5 trillion is more than the GDP of every country in the world, other than the U.S. and China.
Yet while the government is taking in massive revenue, they are spending at a quicker clip. FY 2024 spending is projected to be near $7 trillion! There’s no global pandemic "emergency," there’s no major U.S.-centered war. It’s just massive spending on the back of policies that Kamala Harris was the deciding vote to move forward.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That $5 trillion in revenue eclipses all of government spending for 2018 by 23%.
And by continuing to run deficits that are financed by debt, interest service is becoming a bigger problem, making everything that the government has spent money on in the past even more expensive. That interest service is expected to cost more than $1 trillion for this year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}How does Kamala Harris propose to address our economic and financial issues, other than private price controls? Well, it doesn’t seem to be through any sort of government spending cap.
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Instead, she wants to raise taxes, from corporate taxes to capital gains and even a wealth tax on the "ultra-rich" (which I am sure will never come down to affect the middle class – sarcasm, if that wasn’t obvious).
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But if you took all the wealth of the 10 richest Americans, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, Steve Ballmer, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Michael Bloomberg (which would crash the markets and economy and is morally wrong, but stick with me for the context), you would fund the government once for less than five months.
In addition to attacking individual wealth and trying to tax more, Harris is not talking about any reduction in spending. Rather, she has floated ideas like the government offering $25,000 homebuyer assistance, which would increase spending, not to mention increase the price of houses in a supply-constrained housing market.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The current level of government spending is reckless and dangerous. We need both candidates to be serious about reducing what the government spends.
While price controls are hurtful in the private sector, we could surely use them in the government sector. With Debt-to-GDP at 120%, failure to get serious about government spending will lead to our financial ruin sooner versus later.