Kamala Harris hasn't said much about the economic policies she plans to implement if she wins in November — and what she has said has left economists, even those who have worked with past Democratic administrations, scratching their heads.
The main criticism people generally have of presidential campaigns is that they're "overly ambitious," says Josh Hendrickson, an associate professor of economics at the University of Mississippi. "They have a huge policy agenda, and you look at it and go, 'Okay, you can't possibly do all of these things. You can't do a fraction of these things.'" Not so with Democrats' new nominee, who has thus far declined to articulate in detail her vision for the future of the country she hopes to lead.
Harris's 2024 presidential campaign is "so short on details" and "so short on policy proposals," Hendrickson says, that it's "not even clear what their overall vision is." When she does take a position, she does so haphazardly, "throwing policies at the wall" without any "coherent pattern."
By this point in the 2008 campaign, Obama had released a 33-page "Blueprint for Change" outlining his plan for America. His campaign website featured policy proposals on 23 different topics, including the economy, education, health care, and homeland security. And in 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign website was chock full of proposals, with nearly 40 policy blurbs explaining her positions on the issues.
There is still no issues or policy section on the Harris-Walz campaign website. Democrats have waved away questions about Harris's comparatively less detailed policy agenda, telling National Review in Chicago during last week's Democratic convention that she's had a rushed timeline and will get more specific as the race goes on. The risk-averse strategy relies on vague pledges to protect abortion rights, preserve entitlements, prevent gun violence, and pass the border bill Trump killed earlier this year . . .
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