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Some Rough Economic News for Kamala Harris

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  September 26, 2024 2:15 PM

At this month's presidential debate, Kamala Harris attacked Donald Trump on the economy with this list of criticisms: "Donald Trump has no plan for you. And when you look at his economic plan, it's all about tax breaks for the richest people. I am offering what I describe as an opportunity economy, and the best economists in our country, if not the world, have reviewed our relative plans for the future of America. What Goldman Sachs has said is that Donald Trump's plan would make the economy worse. Mine would strengthen the economy. What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump's plan would actually explode the deficit. Sixteen Nobel laureates have described his economic plan as something that would increase inflation and by the middle of next year would invite a recession."  

Let's set aside the cold hard fact that Trump handed off 1.4 percent inflation to the incoming Biden-Harris administration.  Let's ignore multiple poll findings that voters trust the former president on the economy more than they do Biden or Harris.  Let's also disregard CNN's latest survey result showing that a majority of voters believe Trump's presidency was successful, as opposed to a weak 37 percent for Biden on the same question. On their own terms, Harris' arguments don't stand up to scrutiny.  The CEO of Goldman Sachs has come out and knocked down her framing of their forecast:

Kamala Harris stretched the truth about the benefits of her economic policies during her testy debate against Donald Trump, according to one of the titans of Wall Street. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon called out the Democratic presidential nominee for a claim she made during Tuesday’s showdown in which she touted the investment bank’s analysis of her plan — saying the Vice President blew the report out of proportion. Solomon pointed put that the report “came from an independent analyst” and that Harris left out key details – including that the difference on the economy between the rival plans was “about two-tenths of 1%.” “I think this blew up into something that’s bigger than what it was intended to be,” Solomon told CNBC on Wednesday.

What about her Wharton claim?  As Matt covered yesterday, that was another miss:


Separately, an independent analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation projects that Harris' tax and economic plan would increase government revenues (the IRS union has enthusiastically endorsed Kamala Harris, who doubled their tax collection agency by breaking the Senate tie on the misnamed 'Inflation Reduction Act'), but would decrease GDP growth, depress wages, and bring down job growth:


Then there's the bad consumer confidence number that came in on Tuesday -- the worst posting on the metric in years:

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Given how few actual answers the candidate herself gives on any subject, one almost feels bad for her surrogates who are out there trying to answer questions that the campaign cannot and does not address in any detail. Yikes:


I'll leave you with this:


Among other things, this soundbyte is a vindication of the Greg Abbott strategy of forcing blue state leaders and residents to experience the border crisis firsthand.