It’s interesting Democrats would choose the themes of joy, unity, and freedom for their convention this week. Even a neutral observer would admit these things that have seen a steep decline during the last three and half years of the Biden-Harris Administration.
It’s hard to argue that the sense of American unity, at least among our political class, sits at an all time low.
And when it comes to joy, it’s true Democrats are certainly joyful they have a new top-of-the-ticket candidate, but many Americans aren’t so happy. Those struggling with high prices, declining job prospects, and growing uncertainty about their future are anything but joyful.
Most interesting though have been the Olympic quality contortions by Democrats working to redefine the meaning of freedom.
Freedom from want is a noble sentiment, and both parties want to combat poverty. But solutions that require government transfer payments always rely on coercing more money from taxpayers, including workers and consumers.
In his speech, Tim Walz used the expression, “freedom from being shot.” But from both his comments and record, it’s clear his preferred approach is doing away with the 2nd Amendment rights of gun owners. The alternative approach of enforcing the law and putting criminals in prison didn’t merit much attention.
The freedom from climate outcomes requires a long list of government actions, nearly all of them inhibiting what we heretofore have thought of as freedom … the time is nigh when you will no longer be allowed to host a family barbecue or purchase a gas powered vehicle.
And on it goes. Coercion is now freedom. Your right to believe the science must now give way to my freedom of preferred pronouns. If you refuse compliance, it’s not free speech, it’s hate speech. In Canada and Great Britain, that’ll get you locked up. America may not be far behind once freedom’s redefinition becomes complete. So much for the 1st Amendment.
Aside from joy, unity, and the “new” understanding of freedom; we learned very little in the way of specific policy proposals.
A clue, however, came with the announcement last week of Kamala’s economic strategy to reduce profit gouging by capping prices on groceries. This despite the fact grocery stores operate on less than a 2% margin.
If her policy advisors had done even a little homework, they would have discovered price fixing doesn’t work. Not for Rome in ancient times, and not for the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Cuba, or North Korea more recently. It didn’t work for Nixon in 1970, and it won’t work now.
Price fixing only guarantees drastic shortages in the official market and much higher prices in the black market.
In the same announcement, Kamala said she’d give first-time home buyers a $25,000 government check. But who thinks sellers won’t raise their prices to take advantage of the extra cash?
Harris has also said she wants to increase the child tax credit, expand subsidies for healthcare and housing, institute national rent control, and increase the earned-income-tax-credit. All policies certain to dampen growth and invigorate inflation.
In the Senate, Harris was the first to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. She’s also called for raising business and personal tax rates and for instituting new taxes on unrealized capital gains. She wants to allow most of the 2017 tax reforms to expire claiming they only benefitted the rich. She doesn’t acknowledge lower taxes on job creators resulted in a growing economy, higher incomes for working families, and more jobs for everyone.
Speaking of jobs, the Labor Department revised their employment reports on Wednesday saying the economy created 818,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. That’s a 0.5% decrease in employment and it means job creators added only about 2.1 million jobs rather than the 2.9 million everyone was told.
The revised jobs report energized expectations that the Fed will certainly cut rates in September despite inflation being stuck around the 2.9% mark.
Of course, facts about the economy will be the last thing the media wants to talk about over the next three months. Instead, they’ll almost certainly focus on the joy of the Harris-Walz campaign, the unity of Democrats, and the hope for a kind of freedom we once called oppression.