What Kamala Harris believes

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-kamala-harris-believes-c1136006

What Kamala Harris Believes

The Vice President’s political record reveals the views of a California progressive.

---

By The WSJ  Editorial Board

Democrats are rapidly unifying behind Kamala Harris as their party nominee, yet the Vice President remains relatively unknown to most Americans. That means it’s important to look at her record to see what she believes.

As VP she’s closely identified with the Biden agenda, for better or worse, and she embraced that record in remarks on Monday. She said President Biden’s first term has “surpassed the legacy” of most Presidents who have served two.

So mark her down as endorsing the spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness. Until she says otherwise, we should also assume she’s in favor of Mr. Biden’s $5 trillion tax increase in 2025.

The Vice President’s four years as a Senator from California are another window on her worldview. She sponsored a bill to create a $6,000 guaranteed income for families making up to $100,000. Another Harris proposal: A refundable tax credit that would effectively cap rents and utility payments at 30% of income. Liberal economists panned the subsidy because it would drive up rents.

She co-sponsored legislation with Bernie Sanders that would pay tuition at four-year public colleges for students from families making up to $125,000. This is more honest than the Administration’s back-end student loan cancellation. But it would cost $700 billion over a decade and encourage colleges to increase tuition.

Another Bernie mind-meld: Single-payer healthcare. Ms. Harris co-sponsored his Medicare for All legislation paid for by higher income taxes. She tweaked Bernie’s plan when running for President in 2019 by extending the phase-in to 10 years from four and exempting households making less than $100,000 from the “income-based premium.” But it would still put government in charge of all American healthcare over time.

As a San Francisco Democrat, Ms. Harris shares the state’s hostility to fossil fuels. She used her power as California Attorney General to launch an investigation into Exxon Mobil over its carbon emissions. In 2019 she endorsed a nationwide ban on oil and gas fracking, which would cost tens of thousands of jobs and cause power outages like those that often occur in her home state. Expect this to be a GOP talking point in Pennsylvania.

One question to ask is whether the Vice President wants to restructure the Supreme Court. She said in 2019 she was “open” to adding more Justices, but that idea doesn’t poll well. Does she agree with Mr. Biden’s mooted plan to endorse “reforms” to the High Court that would make the Justices subject to Congressional supervision?

Mr. Biden famously put Ms. Harris in charge of border policy, and we know how that has turned out. Rather than push for border policy changes, her first instinct was to blame the rush of migrants on “root causes” in developing countries, including corruption, violence, poverty and “lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience.”

Climate change makes the U.S. border a sieve? Apparently so. “In Honduras, in the wake of hurricanes, we must deliver food, shelter, water and sanitation to the people,” Ms. Harris declared. “And in Guatemala, as farmers endure continuous droughts, we must work with them to plant drought-resistant crops.” These “root causes” take decades to address, and in the meantime she had nothing to say about actual border security.

Ms. Harris’s foreign policy views aren’t well known, or perhaps even well formed, apart from promoting Mr. Biden’s policies. While she has backed the Administration’s military assistance to Ukraine, she has equivocated about support for Israel. In March she chastised Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Leaks to the press say officials at the National Security Council toned down her speech’s criticism of Israel.

She lambasted the Trump Administration for killing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani, claiming it could lead to bigger war in the Mideast. The killing chastened Iran’s rulers instead, at least until the Biden Administration began to ease sanctions and tried to repeat the 2015 nuclear deal.

It will be especially important for the press to ask Ms. Harris about her national security views. If her handlers control her as much as White House advisers have Mr. Biden, we’ll know they’re afraid that the Vice President might not be able to handle the scrutiny.

A fair conclusion from all of this is that Ms. Harris is a standard California progressive on most issues, often to the left of Mr. Biden. Perhaps as she reintroduces herself to the public in the coming weeks, she will modify some of those views. She would be wise to do so if she wants to win.

Given the rush by Democrats to anoint Ms. Harris as their nominee, the press has a particular obligation to tell the public about who she is and what she really thinks. Does she believe California is a model for the country?

When voting to increase your property taxes. . .

[Politifact.com] “We first checked with the Romney campaign, which said the figure came from the College Board, which produces an annual study of college costs. The College Board found that for the school-year 2008-2009, the average published tuition and fees for in-state students at public four-year colleges and universities was $6,585. By the 2011-2012 school year, it stood at $8,244. That’s an increase of slightly over 25 percent. So the claim has a grain of statistical truth.  “

Then Politifact goes on to do a different statistic—all costs—and claims since that cost is around 20%, the add is mostly false!  Also it was working with a Spanish language ad and didn’t like the translation.

Why put this in a campaign? It's about state supported colleges. Well, states are struggling to support our state institutions because they have all those mandates from the feds--and Obamacare will only increase that as more get bumped from employer insurance to Medicaid. That said, when I stroll across the campus at OSU, I can't believe the plush, lush, extravagant buildings and perks students of the 21st century have. College tuition and fees today are 559% of their cost in 1985. Makes medical costs look like a bargain.

Why college costs keep going up

I didn’t have any college loans to pay off (except to my parents) when I graduated from college in 1961.  And I had that paid off within a year since I was only expected to pay back what I borrowed after I was a “grown up,” married woman, or one semester. For graduate school I had an assistantship.

Federal financial aid is a major source of revenue for colleges and universities, and aid packages are generally based on the gap between what a family can afford to pay to send a student to a given college, and the tuition and fees charged by that college. That gives schools every incentive to keep their tuition unaffordable. Why would they reduce their sticker price to a level more families could afford, when doing so would mean kissing millions of government dollars goodbye?

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11618/the-government-college-money-pit

 

And yes, I went to college 50 years ago, but look at the cost increases in the last 20 years. Or go to any campus and look at the plush, lush buildings.

RPAC at Ohio State, Recreation and Physical Activity Center. When I was in college it was called "walk to classes."

What about heterosexual partners?

Seem to be a few inequities in the tuition break for OSU employees. Gay partners get a tuition break, but not garden variety partners? Technically, I suppose that's because of Ohio's marriage law--that marriage is between one man and one woman--but there are plenty of couples who live together for other reasons (hiding assets, don't want to lose pension benefits, are still married to someone else, etc.) who might wish to have a tuition break.

"Eligible dependents of some Ohio State employees no longer have to wait to take advantage of the university’s reduced tuition benefit.

Staff and tenure-track faculty have had a three-year wait from their date of hire to become eligible for the dependent tuition benefit. But starting fall quarter 2008, sons, daughters, spouses and same-sex domestic partners of eligible OSU employees can take a 50 percent reduction based on in-state undergraduate general and instructional tuition rates — 75 percent if two parents or partners work at OSU."

Why not foster children, siblings, nannies, and live-in in-laws? Y'all come. The state coffers are full!