Based on past evidence, I always thought that Vice President and Democrat Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and was weak on economics. When the issue is always so important that was a concern. In the last 24 hours I have been forced to at least partially reconsider my opinion.
Firstly, she has supported an increase in the US Federal corporation tax rate from 21 per cent to 28 per cent. Trump wants to cut it to 15 per cent. Not only does that clearly create a necessary dividing line, the policy also enormously helps the idea the corporate tax rates should increase around the world: they are very clearly too low. There will, no doubt, be caveats and loopholes in this proposal, because the US tax system is riddled with such things, but this is welcome.
So too were Harris's comments on investment in poverty relief, linked in this tweet.
Excellent answer on funding CTC. There's zero benefit to getting sucked into a “how are you gonna pay for it” game
pic.twitter.com/MuPoV2dWKN— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) August 19, 2024
Harris is asked to justify the cost of the US child tax credit and she does so by talking about the multiplier effects within communities. It's not just, she says, the direct benefit in relieving poverty that matters. She explicitly states that the additional sums circulating in communities expand economic activity, so increasing the tax base, creating a return in excess of the investment in the tax credit as a result. She says it is the duty of anyone discussing these issues to consider them in this way.
That was a strong performance, delivered with confidence and I just wish UK politicians had the same sense to justify spending programmes in this way.
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I agree, Richard, well said.
Kamela Harris’s reply to the “How do you pay for it ” question was a classic example of a politician “playing from the front foot”.
Why, oh why, do ours tend to play from a position of fear – ” Oh no….. That question!” or even demonstrate a downright proud ignorance when in a similar situation?
We deserve better than to have our own ignorance confirmed, or in our case, our intelligence insulted.
“Rob people to pay Trump” is the policy adopted by the politician barbarians in the UK. No sign this is going to change in the UK anytime soon! No sign the circularity aspect of money’s usage has been recognised!
Well said. She has obviously learnt a bit about economics. Perhaps our chancellor could ring her up and gain some knowledge!!!
Individualism is promoted much more in the USA. More often by those who have the resources to be more independent and as a way of evading responsibility for the wider community.
I think it is a weakness of the American system that policies are deemed to be those of an individual running for office rather than a party, country wide, policy . The danger is that the election for president becomes a popularity contest more than about policies.
IMHO the US system is an 18th century concept of an elected King on the model of William and Mary who were invited to reign by Parliament. The powers of the monarch were balanced by the powers of Parliament. Many of the Founding Fathers were Whigs.
Collective policy making in the Labour Party has disappeared unrestrained looting now has free reign! It’s back to the 18th century because most voters prefer to slumber!
“Many of the Founding Fathers were Whigs.”
Actually many of the Founding Fathers were real estate developers!
can be both. Some were slave owners, of course.
I’m speaking as an ex American, who, after 38 years of living in Scotland, has finally renounced my US citizenship earlier this year. It was a personal decision more than a political one. I’ve been a UK citizen for the past 10 years.
Ian Stevenson is 100% correct. Voting in the USA—especially for President—IS a popularity contest. That’s how a President can end up being the President, but having a Congress that opposes every single thing that President tries to do. (As in the case of Obama’s second term.)
I don’t know if the non-Americans here understand just how complicated the voting system is ‘over there.’ Each polling day confronts the voter with a ballot that is pages and pages long (in fairly fine print.) You are not only voting for President of the USA (every 4 years) but your US Senator (every 6 years) and Representative (every 2 years), your state Governor (every 6 years), your state Senator and Representative, your local officials such as public prosecutor, county sheriff, dog catcher, etc. And that’s before you tackle voting for the people who make up the boards of directors of your state universities, and any Propositions (referendums with the power of law) that appear on the ballot. There is other stuff (and people) to vote on as well, but not having lived there for 38 years, I’ve kind of forgotten what they all are.
The candidates are listed by name and party, but you vote separately for each one.
So, faced with this complexity, the majority of voters concentrate on the personality of the presidential candidate and his or her running mate. It’s easy. The rest of it is bewildering for many people.
Voting ‘along party lines’ is done by some people, but I know lots of people who used to mix their votes …usually based on popularity! I confess that I never did the ‘tick any old box’ thing that so many do. If it was an issue I didn’t know anything about (board of directors of state universities) I just left those spots blank. So at the very least I didn’t end up voting for somebody I knew nothing about. But many do—and brag about it later on.
I’m not sure whether the US system is worse or better than the UK’s party-only system. Both have strengths and weaknesses. However, what is absolutely vital for the success of BOTH systems is an informed and intelligent electorate.
This is being undermined every day by media that is mostly owned by the ‘ruling class’ in both countries. So—instead of getting sensible, truly impartial, and informative information from our media—we end up showered with catchy political soundbites and ‘entertainment value’ programming and news stories, all engineered to capture the increasingly short attention span of the average voter.
Not good. Not good at all.
“your state Governor (every 6 years)”
Should be “your state Governor (every 4 years)”
“your local officials such as public prosecutor, county sheriff, dog catcher”
You left out the state and local judges plus the District Attorney.
The ballot may be up to eight pages long in Florida which is why I vote-by-mail so I may properly research.
However, “sample” ballots are available online for download so you can research and make your choices before you go to the polls if not voting-by-mail.
I’m not surprised at all. Harris (deliberately) took a low(ish) profile as Biden’s VP, but she’s been in politics for a long time and comes from – and represented – a state (California) where Democrat politicians have talked about – and a fair few times delivered – on progressive social and economic policies.
On your other point, first Biden and now Harris, have consistently shown our Labour party to be way more right of centre than many a Labour supporter would like to admit, or indeed would Starmer and co. And this from a party (Democrats) that are as broad church – or more – than our Labour Party have been for a long time, thus managing to encompass a progressive caucus of what we would term left-wingers, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar, and, on the ‘right’, conservatives such as John Tester (who thus manages to be a multi-term Senator for Montana, a deeply red (Republican) state.
In short, Starmer and co could learn a lot from the Democrats in the US. But as that’s been the case ever since both countries recovered from the worse of Covid in 2022 and Labour appears to have paid no attention to what the Biden administration have been successfully doing across and range of policy areas I doubt they’ll find the intellect or backbone to do it now.
Thanks, I van
Much to agree with
@Ivan
I was worried about Kamala Harris heading the ticket but since Biden has graciously given her the floor (and supported her 100%) she has shown the world the woman she always has been. I am delightfully surprised.
She will be a great POTUS.
She has surprised just about everyone, I think
No one knew Kamala was a GREAT campaigner who could “flat out” lead a rally or town hall (husting) then rally the foot soldiers for an offensive march through the trenches.
Kamala, like Hillary Clinton & Princess Anne, was always viewed as a highly intelligent, highly competent, highly efficient managerial technocrat by the people I know who have seen her up-close at work.
can we detect Stephanie Kelton’s influence in what Harris is saying?
perhaps non-orthodox economic views are gaining a wider audience
Not big as far as I know
There is no sign she gets MMT
It would be hard for Kamala Harris as vice-president not to be aware of the role Stephanie Kelton was playing in the Economy Taskforce working on policy before Biden’s election as president:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGlqnHTBP3I
True, buit as far as I know she is not advising now
I guess I could ask her though….
Do you consider Ms Kelton to be a “friend”?
I do
There ought to be a name for the phenomenon where a BBC interview with a politician appears quite challenging, combative or forensic – but in actual fact it is within a quite narrow framework – often already already defined by opposing politicians. And it certianly never strays into areas Big Brother has deemed a Thought Crime – such as ‘are you sure there is no money?’.
Thus – ‘you have awarded doctors and train drivers pay rises recommended by review bodies – does that mean you have caved in to ‘the unions’ so it will now be a free for all?’. This suggests that the only effect of giving pay rises which restore living standards eroded over ten years is to ‘waste’ public money – and potentially cause wage inflation – rather than for example revive the health service by retaining skilled staff and education by keeping more teachers in the classroom, and boosting economic growth as people spend their wages.
On the ‘difficult decision’ to stop pensioners cold weather payments to fill Reeves’ “black hole” – the question ‘aren’t there other places you could have found the money- millionaires? corporate super profits? etc. Even an innocent open ended ‘is there nowhere else to get the money’ is never asked.
How to characterise this ? Maybe it’s ‘interviewing within the Overton Window?’ There ought to be a better description.
Good question
What I know is that it is crippling debate in the UK
“How to characterise this ? Maybe it’s ‘interviewing within the Overton Window?’ There ought to be a better description.”
Slumberville!
The problem is that politicians do not give interviews to journalists who ask difficult questions.
As Noam Chomsky said to Andrew Marr in 1996: “I’m not sayiny you’re self-censoring, but if you said anything different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
Jackanory interviews? Today we’ll look through the Overton window…
🙂
But wasn’t that Play School?
I don’t know much about the current relationship between Kamala Harris and her father, or about his impact on her economic thinking (her parents divorced when she was young). However, her father is Donald J Harris who was for many years a post-Keynesian economics professor at Stanford university. He seems to have known Joan Robinson amongst others. He wrote a book in the 1970s called Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution which he dedicated to Kamala and her sister. It is available for free download from the stanford.edu site. At minimum, I would expect that Kamala must have had some exposure to post-Keynesian ideas
It is heartening to see this in America of all places.
So, how long before it takes hold here!!
The issue here is that the Faragists have not marched on Parliament yet, unlike what happened on Capitol Hill.
Maybe Trump has got the Democrats really scared and more open to ‘new ideas’ or at least not so addicted to ones past their use-by date.
Politics – it’s a funny old business.
“Maybe Trump has got the Democrats really scared”
Trump has the non-MAGAt Republicans scared!
When an evangelical’s wife suffers an ectopic pregnancy, then local emergency room refuses to treat her as the hospital & doctor could be prosecuted for performing an abortion, then husband and wife must go to another state for treatment to prevent a ruptured fallopian tube, then when they get back to their home they start telling the story to their evangelical friends and local TV station & newspaper people wake-up to what Trump has really done!
Spot on
My wife was a neo-natal paediatrician before becoming a GP. She can’t imagine how anyone could do the jib in the US now. I won’t repeat some of the scenarios she has described where in the US murder charges could now arise, and it’s oh so unfortunate that the mother just happens to die because she has a non-viable fetus. But they’re just a woman, aren’t they, and what do they count for in MAGA land?
“She can’t imagine how anyone could do the jib in the US now.”
It varies from state to state.
Republicans (all branches except MAGAts) are waking up to what Donald Trump has done or set in motion. It is even talked about in the checkout lines at the grocery store.
Thanks for posting this news clip. I feel really encouraged to use my US vote now.
I vote in swing state Nevada, so never miss.
Whatever next, universal free school meals?!
Now, there’s an idea, if only Labour would listen…
@Jake Rayson
Some schools system in the USA do have universal free school meals (breakfast & lunch).
Universal free school meals are not unheard of in the USA and they are necessarily in only the poorest school systems.
> in only the poorest school systems
Well, that’s not universal then!
@Jake
Free school meals is a local issue decided by each “school system”.
The Federal government can provide funding but the final decisions rest with the local “school system”.
Many “school systems” with the majority of students “not in poverty” have free school meals for all.
In the USA “Universal Free School Meals” applies to the “universe” of a particular school system.
As in some “school systems” have nurses/and or a healthcare clinic in the individual schools and some “school systems” do not.
“they are necessarily in only the poorest school”
Should have been “they are NOT necessarily in only the poorest schools”
Well, it’s not a spending programme, it’s an investment programme, right!!!
Perhaps if we tweaked the linguistics more people would understand what such programmes are trying to create!
I don’t know why, but my paragraphing in my earlier post didn’t come through! Yikes. I can’t change it now.
It seems to be there
My paragraphing is “messed-up” in the preview but posts perfectly once comment is approved.
Tis must be a WordPress issue
Apologies – it is beyond my control. I also do not see what you do when I have access.
I was hoping she might have some heterodox economic instincts in there somewhere, after I saw that her father is a neo-keynsian:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris