Kamala Harris is a Pragmatist, the Only True American Philosophy
by John Lawrence
Kamala wants to strengthen the border. That's supposedly a right wing issue. She wants to give the middle class a tax break. That's a right wing issue too. She wants to strengthen the safety net. That's supposedly a left wing issue. The division of the political spectrum into left wing and right wing issues doesn't make sense any more. No one seems to be interested in foreign policy as an issue in this election so left and right are moot in terms of foreign policy. I am so glad that Democrats have co-opted the tax issue. President Biden first caught on to this when he said he wouldn't raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. This makes so much sense. Tax the rich, but give the middle class a tax break. Why haven't Democrats thought of making this the issue till recently? The only people opposing Kamala's suggested increased safety net provisions such as giving first time home buyers $25,000 for a down payment or increasing Medicare to incorporate home care for elders are right wing Republicans who don't believe the government should help anyone especially if it raises their taxes by one cent. Increasing the safety net does not necessarily mean anyone's taxes need to be increased. During the 2008 Great Recession, the government spent billions to bail out the banks without raising anyone's taxes. The US dollar is a fiat currency which can just be printed to pay for anything. Thanks to Modern Monetary Theory for explaining that. However, the danger in printing too much money is inflation which the MMT theorists have pointed out. Inflation has come back down to normal so that that shouldn't be an issue going forward. Whether the problem was the dollar giveaways during the pandemic or other issues has not been conclusively determined. The point is that there is not necessarily a cause and effect situation between taxation or lack thereof and government spending.
So the difference between Republican proposed tax breaks and Democratic proposed tax breaks should be made clear. Republicans, Trump in particular, will give huge tax breaks to the rich and modest tax breaks to the middle class with the resulting deficit being added to the national debt. Kamala's tax breaks would only affect the middle class while increased taxes on the rich would pay for them. Thus would not add to the national debt. In fact taxes should be raised on the rich not only to use the money to benefit the middle class but just on principle, the principle being that economic inequality is at levels not seen since the era of kings, monarchs, emperors and czars, in other words not since feudalism. Extreme economic inequality bodes ill against a democracy which must have a strong middle class in order to stay a democracy. Otherwise, you have extremely rich guys like Elon Musk out there buying votes with his million dollar a day giveaways.
I predict this election will see women outvoting men so that Kamala will win. It won't be men electing the first woman President; it will be women doing it. Men will do their best to elect Trump. They all seem to be making excuses for him saying "he doesn't really mean that" to all his outrageous statements. There's no reason not to think that Trump is a dangerous guy who will transform the nature of America and estrange our allies by implementing a radical change in foreign policy. There needs to be a change from Biden's foreign policy in order to end the two wars, but it should be done in association with our allies, not by abruptly separating from our allies. The people out there who are apologists for Trump need to think twice before voting for him.The American economy is the envy of the world, not in the toilet as some of them would have you believe. We need continuity with the Biden government, not a radical change. Inflation is under control. The main economic issue is the high cost of real estate and rent. Kamala has proposed specific plans to deal with this; Trump has not. Trump's proposed tariffs would add to the financial burdens of the middle class. Any one who has a brain in their head will vote for Kamala. Unfortunately, there are many Americans that do not.
