Trump has a plan for economic prosperity, Harris does not

As the November election approaches, the economy remains the most important issue for voters. On the question of which candidate voters believe would make the best economic policy decisions, President Trump holds a 10 percentage point advantage over Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the latest Pew Research survey. No one should be surprised. 

Trump offers straightforward pro-growth economic policies consistent with the plan he successfully implemented during his first term in office, as most voters fondly recall. 

He would keep tax rates low, encouraging investment and consumer spending, reduce growth-hobbling business regulation, and expand America’s domestic energy production, reducing the cost of literally everything. 

Former President Trump attends a town hall meeting moderated by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Flint, Michigan, on Sept. 17, 2024. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

During his first term in office, this plan reduced unemployment to historic lows for every race and both sexes, increased wages and family incomes to historic highs, drove poverty to historic lows, reduced income inequality, and all without inflation. It’s a plan that works, and Americans know it. 

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In fact, CNBC surveys going back to 2008 tellingly show that, over the past 16 years, Americans have been more pessimistic than optimistic about the economy in all but two years – 2018 and 2019 – when Trump was president. 

In other words, Americans were more pessimistic than optimistic about the economy in all 12 years that Presidents Obama and Biden occupied the White House, but were more optimistic in two of the four years Trump was president. No one seriously doubts that Trump’s economic winning streak would have continued but for the pandemic. 

Today, economic pessimism is essentially back to where it was in 2016, Obama’s last year in office, and where it was near the end of 2021, the year Biden and Harris took office. 

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The roots of the current pessimism lie in two massive Biden/Harris spending bills – each of passed only because Harris casting the tie-breaking votes (the misnamed American Rescue Plan and the comically named Inflation Reduction Act). 

These bills led to an economy plagued by surging inflation that raised the price of everything over 20% – and Harris owns them. Real wages failed to keep up, lowering the standard of living for millions of Americans. Add in housing that is far less affordable due in great part to interest rate hikes the Fed implemented to reduce inflation, and you have serious economic pessimism. 

It's not a record Harris wants to run on so she is attempting to distance herself from it, promising an "opportunity economy." But how would Americans find economic opportunity without economic growth, something her plans would only stifle? 

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Of course, Harris would increase taxes on the most successful individuals and businesses. It’s a policy that’s very popular, if not a mainstay, on the Left. But raising taxes unequivocally discourages private sector investment and growth, demeaning economic opportunity.  

A San Francisco liberal at heart, Harris has indicated no inclination to meaningfully reduce the massive, growth-killing federal regulatory state and is unlikely to abandon her career-long opposition to domestic fossil fuel production (despite supposedly reversing her position on fracking, at least in politically significant Pennsylvania). 

So, from where will the growth from her "opportunity economy" come?

In a desperate effort to come up with something, Harris offers a confused mixture of unserious proposals even the left-leaning never-Trump Washington Post has criticized as "populist gimmicks." 

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For example, to combat inflation, Harris has proposed that government fix the price of goods purportedly to stop businesses from "price gouging." But there has been no price gouging as the Biden-Harris administration’s own Department of Labor data makes clear. In reality, American businesses have merely passed on to consumers the increased costs that surging inflation has forced on them.  

In any event, price fixing is just bad economic policy. As stated in a Washington Post opinion piece, "[i]t’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is," as government price fixing "would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat." That sounds pretty bad! 

But of course it’s a bad economic policy. It was never intended to be good economic policy. It is a purely political proposal designed to cast blame on American businesses for the surging inflation the Biden-Harris economic policies caused. 

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So, given her pivotal role in passing those two inflation-driving behemoth spending bills, you would think Harris might have learned her lesson on government spending and inflation. But apparently she has not. 

The Washington Post’s editorial board also panned another Harris "populist gimmick" – to give first-time home buyers $25,000 in down payment assistance. Why? Well, because it would stimulate housing demand "which risks putting upward pressure on prices." Of course it does.  

But again, Harris’ goal was not to actually make home purchases less expensive. It was to assuage voters frustrated that housing inflation and increased interest rates have made owning a home to expensive thanks to Biden-Harris economic policies. 

Bottom line, Trump offers a proven pro-growth plan that will reinvigorate our economy benefiting all Americans. Harris offers growth-diminishing policies and political gimmicks. Rather than economic opportunity for American families, her policies are about political opportunity for herself. 

If Americans have had enough economic misery over the last three-and-a-half years and are ready for a return to prosperity, Trump has a plan for that. Harris does not. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ANDY PUZDER

Andy Puzder was chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants for more than 16 years, following a career as an attorney. He is currently a senior fellow at both the America First Policy Institute and the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. His next book, "A Tyranny for the Good of its Victims – The Ugly Truth About Stakeholder Capitalism" will come out  early next year.