Green New Deal and Medicare for all put Kamala Harris on track for socialist policies that hurt consumers
VP Kamala Harris' old tweet supporting Jussie Smollett surfaces
Former Chicago PD Chief of Detectives Eugene Roy joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss his reaction to the old tweet surfacing and his take on Harris' 'prosecutor' positioning in the 2024 race.
Vice President Kamala Harris has never been closer to becoming president of the United States. And if she succeeds in that endeavor in November, her administration would likely be the most socialist and destructive in our country’s history.
The Biden-Harris administration has been nothing short of a complete disaster. Under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Harris, Americans have experienced soaring levels of government debt and inflation. Housing has never been more expensive. Families are becoming increasingly more dependent on government to survive. Europe and the Middle East are now embroiled in deadly conflicts after four years of stability under former President Donald Trump.
As bad as things have been with Biden as president, however, putting Harris in charge would make life substantially worse. Biden has been one of America’s most progressive presidents, but Harris’s past policy positions are even further to the left of those backed by Biden.
TRUMP QUICKLY MOVES TO DEFINE HARRIS AS 'MORE LEFT THAN BERNIE SANDERS'
In fact, if Harris were to become president, it’s fair to say that she would be the first democratic socialist candidate to fill the position in the 248-year history of the United States.
Vice President Kamala Harris has moved into the top spot on the Democrat ticket and that makes her socialist policies even scarier. (Fox News)
I have listed below two of the most socialist legislative proposals backed by Harris. Together, they feature more than 10 different radical policies. If they were enacted, they would crush the U.S. economy and reduce individual liberty in unprecedented ways.
1. The Green New Deal
The best and clearest example of Harris’s socialist views is her commitment to the Green New Deal, one of the most far-reaching, costly proposals offered in American history.
The Green New Deal, which was spearheaded by self-described socialist New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, included a long list of collectivist and economically destructive policies, including ending the use of gasoline-powered cars, oil, natural gas, and other reliable energy sources — all in just 10 years.
The Green New Deal also called for a massive new infrastructure plan, including a nationwide network of high-speed rail, "basic income" programs, a government jobs guarantee, "upgrading all existing buildings in the United States," the creation of a system of public banks, rebuilding the electric grid, trillions in wind and solar development, and the transformation of U.S. agriculture, including an end to much of the cattle industry.
The Green New Deal also called for a single-payer health care plan.
Harris was one of the Green New Deal’s biggest supporters and one of only 14 senators to co-sponsor the plan when it was introduced in the Senate in 2019, along with other socialist-leaning politicians like Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren.
Harris was such a fan of the Green New Deal that she even suggested changing Senate rules to make it easier to ram it through the legislative process.
The GND would shove the country toward socialism, and in so doing, set it up for a full-blown economic catastrophe.
Far left Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the EMILY's List National Conference and Gala in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2022. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
The energy provisions of the plan are particularly worrisome. America’s economy depends on affordable, dependable energy sources like natural gas. Imposing a reckless transition to costly, less reliable forms of energy like wind and solar, especially over a short period, would be disastrous for America’s economic development.
Not only that, but the GND’s estimated cost range tops out at $94 trillion, according to the American Action Forum, a price tag that would require substantially more money-printing, taxes and debt.
If Harris has it her way and the Green New Deal becomes law, it would cause taxes and inflation to skyrocket well beyond what most families can afford. It would also limit consumer choices and destroy entire fossil-fuel-related industries, along with the many jobs that they provide.
2. Medicare for all
Biden has been staunchly opposed to Medicare for All plans like those supported by Bernie Sanders, but when Harris ran for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2019, she made the socialist policy one of the key parts of her policy agenda.
Under the Harris Medicare for All proposal, newborns and uninsured would automatically be enrolled in a government-run health care plan, and those with employer-sponsored insurance would be phased into the plan over 10 years. Eventually, almost everyone would be stuck with government health coverage.
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Harris would allow for a narrow range of private health insurance, but those plans would be supplemental to Medicare for All, tightly regulated, and would be required to "adhere to strict Medicare requirements on costs and benefits."
Medicare for All plans like Harris’s would effectively force everyone with quality coverage into an inferior, government-run program. And because Medicare reimbursement rates are much lower than private health insurance, healthcare providers would need to slash the quality of services provided just to break even.
Sooner or later, providers or the government will likely turn to rationing care to manage costs, as they do now in many European nations that have government-run health care systems. That means longer wait times and reduced access to care for most Americans.
If Harris has it her way and the Green New Deal becomes law, it would cause taxes and inflation to skyrocket well beyond what most families can afford. It would also limit consumer choices and destroy entire fossil-fuel-related industries, along with the many jobs that they provide.
Medicare for All would also be extremely expensive, costing tens of trillions of dollars in new government spending. A study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University found that Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan, which is very similar but not identical to Harris’s version, would cost taxpayers $32 trillion over 10 years. (Most of the major provisions are identical.)
Even worse, for millions of taxpayers, the benefits provided would not outweigh the cost of the additional taxes that would likely need to be imposed to pay for the plan.
America simply cannot afford Harris’s radical vision for the country. And even if it could, putting the dysfunctional, inefficient, corrupt federal government in charge of virtually every part of our lives, from health care to the kinds of cars we can drive, should be avoided at all costs.
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Justin Haskins is the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute and a New York Times bestselling author.
