Vice President Kamala Harris released her economic plan in advance of the Democratic National Convention this week.

Since replacing her boss, President Joe Biden, on the Democratic ticket, Harris has flip-flopped on many previous leftist positions in a bid to move to the center.

Her newly announced economic plan exposes policy positions that are not just liberal but far-left and ultra-radical. Ripped from the playbooks of failed socialist governments, Harris would move the U.S. economy from abundance to scarcity and American households from prosperity to poverty.

What’s in the plan?

  • A ban on price gouging on food and groceries
  • Expanded the child tax credit
  • $6,000 child tax credit for new parents
  • $25,000 tax credit to first-time home buyers
  • Building 3 million new housing units
  • A cap on prescription drug costs
  • Elimination of medical debt for millions of Americans 

Harris has not released details on how this will be paid for. Early analyses peg the cost of her plan at a hefty $1.7 trillion over a decade (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget) to in excess of $2 trillion over 10 years (Tax Foundation).

If not offset by tax increases on businesses and individuals or cuts to the budget, these costs will be added to the national debt. 

Here are 6 ways Kamala Harris’s plan will impact you:

  1. Accelerate inflation. Massive federal spending through stimulus checks and other expenditures financed by printed money helped to ignite inflation in 2021. Some $2 trillion of more federal spending will spark consumer spending instead of slowing it down and drive prices higher. 
  2. Spike house prices. A $25,000 tax credit for new homebuyers will increase demand for housing without expanding the housing supply to meet the demand, causing prices to rise. Look for pandemic-era house bidding wars to return. Meanwhile, home sellers can inflate listing prices knowing that first-time homebuyers have an extra $25,000 to spend.
  3. Lead to shortages, black markets, and worse. Limiting how much a producer can charge for groceries will cause them to cut their supply of those goods because they won’t be able to charge enough to cover their production costs. Empty shelves were a pandemic nightmare in America, but are a daily reality in countries where the government imposed price controls. So are other unsavory marketplaces such as black markets.
  4. Reduce innovation and options among prescription drugs. Price controls on prescription drugs are already deterring new drug development. As a result of current price controls on prescription drugs from the Inflation Reduction Act, up to 135 fewer drugs will be brought to market through 2039.
  5. Discourage interest rate cuts. The Federal Reserve’s continued fight against inflation has kept interest rates high. This is painful for consumers with mortgages and debt, but it also raises the interest on the national debt to unsustainable levels. If inflation takes off, the Fed will be discouraged from cutting interest rates as expected this fall. 
  6. Complicates the fight to keep the 2017 tax cuts. Harris’s plan is no doubt financed by clawbacking some of the 2017 tax cuts. The appetite to make tax cuts permanent on the left will wane as the cost of this spending plan adds up.

Americans are straining under the weight of 3.5 years of high inflation. While the inflation rate, which is finally below 3%, has come down, prices have risen on average by 20% since the start of 2021.

Kamala Harris’s economic plan appeals to leftists who oppose the free market system and capitalism. It rests on the belief that smart bureaucrats can engineer the market outcomes they desire.

However, empowering the federal government to directly intervene in the economy by telling businesses what they can charge for eggs, milk, and bread is not just unnecessary, as grocery inflation rates are coming down. It is dangerous market manipulation. Reignited inflation and shortages are foreseeable outcomes if economics and history hold.

Americans face grim prospects: unemployment rates are rising and Americans are increasingly worried about losing their jobs, pandemic savings have been spent down, and credit cards are maxed out just trying to maintain the same quality of life.

If enacted, we can expect severe shortages, rapid acceleration of prices on essentials, and business closures. Add to that Kamala Harris’s pledge to end the 2017 tax cuts that expire next year, and American households as well as the overall economy face a bleak financial future for years to come.