Kamala’s brand new, same old last-minute policy platform

After weeks of studious silence, Vice President Kamala Harris has been issuing a flurry of policy proposals that she’s touting as “A New Way Forward.” But is it really new? Or is it the old way forward?

In the early hours of Monday morning, she unveiled a series of proposals for the first time on her website about the economy, immigration and foreign affairs. Harris is careful to contrast her proposals, again and again, with what she terms “Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda.” Poor Trump. He has repeatedly disavowed the Heritage Foundation tome calling for everything from banning IVF to purging the civil service. But it hasn’t helped as the Harris campaign presents it as his campaign platform.

Rather than a bold call to arms like Woodrow Wilson’s “the New Freedom,” Harris’s proposals nibble around at the edges, promising more than they can deliver. She supports $5 trillion in tax hikes, including a “billionaire income tax” that would hit the unsold assets of anyone earning over $100 million a year. She also wants to hike the capital gains tax from 20 percent to 28 percent for anyone earning more than $1 million a year, less than President Joe Biden who called for raising it to 39.6 percent.

Then there is her call for ending what she deems price-gouging at supermarkets as well as a $25,000 federal subsidy for first-time home buyers. The truth is that the notion that supermarkets are wallowing in illicit profits is far-fetched. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the rise in wages for employees all explain the sharp increase for foodstuffs, not conspiracy theories about greedy corporations. Imposing price controls on supermarkets would merely ensure that food shortages ensued. Anyway, inflation is going down and the Federal Reserve is about to cut interest rates. Eventually, the sticker shock will recede and consumers will be less exercised — at least until the next round of price hikes when there is a fresh domestic or international crisis.

On foreign affairs, she zigs and zags when it comes to Israel. She notes that Israel has the right to defend itself, while Palestinians also have one to self-determination. At her most feisty, Harris dings Trump for embracing foreign dictators, declaring that she will stand with America’s allies and “stand up to dictators” in China and elsewhere. She also vows to resuscitate a bipartisan border bill that Trump sabotaged.

These proposals will help insulate Harris on the cusp of her big debate with Trump in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center, where he is center to attempt to portray her not just as a big-government liberal, but as “Comrade Kamala” intent on imposing a Marxist regime upon America. As her repeated references to Project 2025 indicate, Harris, in turn, will depict Trump as a not-so-incipient authoritarian who wants to impose his own version of an intrusive government upon the republic.

For all the brickbats that Trump has directed at her for failing to offer much in the way of policies, Harris has been shrewd to avoid stating much beyond traditional Democratic talking points. She needs to persuade voters less to vote for her than against Trump. Harris won’t be focusing on practical policies. Instead, she will be seeking to lure Trump into recapitulating his favorite conspiracy theories, which shouldn’t be difficult now that Melania is wading into the same waters. On a new video to promote her new book, Melania, she announces, “I can’t help but wonder, why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech? There is definitely more to this story, and we need to uncover the truth.” It sounds like a sublime topic for tonight’s debate.