Kamala runs like a Republican – and misleads on tariffs

Kamala Harris is losing the fight for the American middle.

In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, a plurality of respondents – 44% – label her “too liberal or progressive.”

Only 42% say she’s “not too far either way,” compared to a solid 50% who say that about Donald Trump.

But it’s not only voters who think Harris is too far left; the vice president herself agrees.

That’s why she’s running like a wannabe Republican, even welcoming support from Liz and Dick Cheney.

She’s tried to make “freedom,” the traditional rallying cry of conservatives, her campaign’s watchword.

The newly contrived policy pages of Harris’ website downplay what she and Joe Biden have actually done these last four years and instead emphasize what she says she’ll do if elected in November.

The section is titled “A New Way Forward” despite the fact that she’s already in power – and, given Biden’s debility, Harris is more than just a junior partner at this point.

In the four years she served in the Senate, independent analysts graded Harris one of the body’s most liberal members, or its single most liberal.

Now, however, Harris is trying to co-opt classic Republican issues, with the first heading on her policy page promising to “cut taxes for middle class families.”

The actual policy is effectively plagiarized from Trump’s running mate: After J.D. Vance proposed a $5,000 child tax credit for families, the Harris camp rolled out a $6,000 credit.

Harris, a candidate who famously wanted to ban fracking when she ran for president four years ago, isn’t just backtracking on her record and attempting to sound like a member of the opposite party.

She wants to switch places with the GOP, branding Trump as the high-tax candidate.

To do that, Harris’ camp is claiming that the tariffs Trump would impose on foreign goods are really taxes Americans will have to pay.

Some free-market pundits hate tariffs, and Trump, so much that they’re going along with this argument, even though elementary economic theory shows it’s wrong.

A tariff makes a foreign product more expensive – but consumers don’t magically wind up with more money in their pockets when prices rise.

And a higher price doesn’t make a product more attractive, but just the opposite; if prices rise, demand falls.

Companies, meanwhile, whether foreign or domestic, always try to set their prices to make maximum profit; they don’t under-price their goods.

If a business could sell as many widgets by charging $11 instead of $10, it would already be charging that much, regardless of tariffs.

A producer can only “pass on” the cost of a tariff if consumers are willing and able to pay more for the same product they’ve already been buying – yet if they were willing to pay more, the producer would already be charging more and making a higher profit.

It’s the company’s profit, not the consumer price, that’s most heavily affected by a tariff.

And if the price consumers are asked to pay does go up, they have alternatives: what economists call “substitute goods.”

When tariffs are put on foreign goods, domestic goods become a substitute, though it’s also possible that consumers might substitute an entirely different kind of product.

If there’s a tariff on Golden Delicious apples, consumers might switch to Granny Smiths, or they might start buying oranges instead.

To make her case, Harris is counting on the widespread economic ignorance and the prejudices of market-minded pundits who will conveniently forget all they know about price theory when the despised word “tariffs” – or “Trump” – is spoken.

Free-market purists dislike tariffs because they reduce the overall quantity of goods: If companies pay tariffs out of their profits, they don’t have as much money to invest in new production, and if companies try to raise prices, consumers don’t buy as much as they used to.

There’s also a fear that, in protected markets, domestic producers will be able to charge more simply because there’s less competition.

But the opportunity to make more profit in a protected market is also an incentive for more domestic firms to enter that market, which again puts downward pressure on prices and increases the volume of goods.

Trump may expect too much from his tariffs – both in terms of revenue and how much they’ll bolster domestic production.

But it’s foreign profits and foreign production that are squeezed the most by tariffs, not American consumers.

Trump means tariffs, yes – but Harris means things like a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains.

Polls show Harris’s attempt to sell herself as a Reaganesque Democrat is failing.

Free-market advocates can’t afford to be less perceptive than the ordinary voters who recognize Harris is too far left.