Kamala Harris’ policies could add billions to US national debt, says Maggie Pagano

Like it or not, Kamala Harris is on the rise right now. In the first 24 hours after President Biden was forced to drop out of the race, the Democratic front-runner to replace him had raised $250 million in online donations and large donor pledges for her campaign.

It’s one of the largest amounts ever raised in such a short span of an election cycle — twice what Biden raised in the first two months of his campaign — and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Online donations soared to $11.5 million in a single hour on Sunday night, hours after Biden dropped out.

Since then, money pouring into ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s online fundraising platform, from private, grassroots donors has continued to rise. Nearly two-thirds of these contributors were making their first donations to this year’s race.

Billionaires backing Democrats are getting back on track after their threat to pull funding from Biden. Along with the Soros family, one of Biden’s former biggest supporters, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn, is also back, pledging big money.

Even pop stars are supporting Harris, even British ones. Singer Charli XCX endorsed her as a Democratic candidate, tweeting “Kamala IS Brat.” Brat, for the uninitiated, is the pop star’s latest album, No. 2 in the U.K. charts, and the word is said to represent “carefree”-minded girls who like to party.

Harris has already changed the color of her HarrisHQ campaign account to the album’s lime green. Tik Tok has gone wild. However, Democrats will need a lot more money (and Gen Z voters) for a fierce fight against President Trump.

Political spending in the last election in 2020 was a staggering $14.4 billion, more than double the previous record election in 2016.

Government transparency group OpenSecrets reports that Democratic candidates and groups spent $8.4 billion last time around, compared to $5.3 billion for Republicans. Money spent on digital platforms like Tik Tok is also set to rise.

But what impact would a Harris presidency have, aside from the possibility of a few more Brat albums being released, on financial markets and global affairs? She hasn’t revealed much. Even her first major campaign speech in Delaware made no mention of what she might want to do in the White House.

What we do know is that Harris would be the most “progressive” left-wing president of all American presidents, certainly on economic and social issues. In the past, she has advocated raising taxes on income, capital gains, inheritances and financial transactions, and would raise corporate tax back to the pre-Trump level of 35%.

On spending, he has proposed a kind of universal basic income, as well as Medicare for all.

These are costly policies that add billions of dollars more debt to the books.

On foreign policy, Harris is expected to follow Biden’s lead on major issues such as Ukraine and Iran, but could be tougher on Israel when it comes to the war in Gaza. On China (America’s biggest geopolitical challenge), Harris is likely to stick to Biden’s tough tariff policy on imports, a move that a growing number of trade experts are questioning as self-defeating. This will undoubtedly put her at odds with Trump, whose policy toward China (and Taiwan) is often erratic but ultimately commercial.

Interestingly, a poll conducted by the X-like Chinese website Weibo after Biden resigned revealed that most respondents believe Trump will win. This election is becoming more exciting by the day.