Kamala's New Economic Agenda (A disappointment)

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...a/74800635007/

I really love the new energy Kamala/Walz are bringing to the Democratic ticket. I see that she has thrown down the beginnings of her economic policy, and I'm not thrilled..it seems that instead of attacking the problems at the source, she is using the government to fill in the gap between the middle class and corporate greed.

Examples:

Harris' campaign shared new details Thursday evening on her plans to bring down housing costs.

The plan includes up to $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. That's more than the $10,000 tax credit for first-time purchasers the Biden administration previously laid out. Her campaign projects the initiative will help more than 4 million first-time buyers purchase homes.

Good thinking, but that's not the answer

Harris will also seek to provide homebuilders a tax incentive to construct and sell starter homes and establish a $40 billion fund to help local governments with address housing shortages.

Oh, good. Good-bye old growth forests as even more trees are wantonly felled so people can have brand new shiny houses.

See, this shows the difficulty in how people with Baltic and Mediterranean properties can make it against the owners of Park Place and Boardwalk. But using ad hoc bandaids furnished by the Government is not sustainable. I don't have the answer, but I would love for someone to come up with a better one than Kamala's

I will just echo a Babylon Bee headline parodying Kamala’s campaign:

“Vote me into office to fix things!” Says the woman currently in office.

haha. But seriously, as we all know from watching the brilliant television show “Veep” the vice president has little to no influence on policy. I still hold her responsible for part of the cover-up of Joe Biden’s incapacity. Let us not forget that Joe Biden is still being allowed to operate as President of the United States by the same team. This is a travesty.

all that said, I do not personally dislike Kamala or her running mate. I *do* dislike their ideas.

Ugh, catherine, agreed, throwing tax dollars at more social programs to help the middle class is an inelegant “fix” for the house buying middle class. The problem is that these same middleclass folks will be paying out tax dollars.

The dollars funneled through bureaucrats to get home buyers their $25,000 down payment is incalcuable and therefore depressing.

Wow, that policy is insane. I can't afford new construction. I guarantee starter house people can't, either. They should give out a $25000 k incentive to fix up an old starter house, like the brick ranch my son has in Indiana that costs around $125000 ten years ago.

We seem to be in a race to the bottom in economically illiterate pandering. Trump is talking about major tariffs. Harris wants to interfere in the housing market. She’s also talking about price controls, which I suppose serves equally well as both a pander and a way to distract from the role federal fiscal fecklessness in driving inflation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

I will just echo a Babylon Bee headline parodying Kamala’s campaign:

“Vote me into office to fix things!” Says the woman currently in office.

haha. But seriously, as we all know from watching the brilliant television show “Veep” the vice president has little to no influence on policy. I still hold her responsible for part of the cover-up of Joe Biden’s incapacity. Let us not forget that Joe Biden is still being allowed to operate as President of the United States by the same team. This is a travesty.

all that said, I do not personally dislike Kamala or her running mate. I *do* dislike their ideas.

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Look at the alternative. There is no question who is the better candidate!

I have been involved locally in producing affordable housing for ~25 years now. I’ve helped run our local Community Land Trust(*), served as a County Planning Commissioner for 12+ years, and was a County Housing Bank Commissioner for years.

Affordable housing, ownership or rental, is a very complicated problem. Randomly throwing money at it doesn’t really help much, long-term. Most of these proposals are transparent attempts to get votes, not an effort to address the variety of structural issues(**) that reduce access to housing in our nation.


(*) My island’s community land trust now administers:

- 8 neighborhoods
- 110 permanently affordable ownership homes
- 94 permanently affordable rental apartments
- 5 office spaces for rent/lease
- 96.1 acres of land
- 5 community gardens

(**) Nearly 20 years ago, the Housing Bank Commission issued a report after much work listing several dozen things that would likely improve our housing situation. The Commission has produced a nearly-identical report every few years since. Many of the items listed were simple no-cost regulatory or land-use changes entirely within the control of the County. The County has relentlessly refused to adopt most of those ideas, preferring instead to pursue a path that raises revenue by taxes on property transactions to fund…more employees at the County to think about affordable housing. They have caused nearly zero new housing opportunities to appear in the market here after wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars, indeed, their actions have likely increased housing costs and reduced new affordable construction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bae

I have been involved locally in producing affordable housing for ~25 years now. I’ve helped run our local Community Land Trust(*), served as a County Planning Commissioner for 12+ years, and was a County Housing Bank Commissioner for years.

Affordable housing, ownership or rental, is a very complicated problem. Randomly throwing money at it doesn’t really help much, long-term. Most of these proposals are transparent attempts to get votes, not an effort to address the variety of structural issues(**) that reduce access to housing in our nation.


(*) My island’s community land trust now administers:

- 8 neighborhoods
- 110 permanently affordable ownership homes
- 94 permanently affordable rental apartments
- 5 office spaces for rent/lease
- 96.1 acres of land
- 5 community gardens

(**) Nearly 20 years ago, the Housing Bank Commission issued a report after much work listing several dozen things that would likely improve our housing situation. The Commission has produced a nearly-identical report every few years since. Many of the items listed were simple no-cost regulatory or land-use changes entirely within the control of the County. The County has relentlessly refused to adopt most of those ideas, preferring instead to pursue a path that raises revenue by taxes on property transactions to fund…more employees at the County to think about affordable housing. They have caused nearly zero new housing opportunities to appear in the market here after wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars, indeed, their actions have likely increased housing costs and reduced new affordable construction.

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I am glad more employees to study the housing problem on your island are funded with tax dollars. More government jobs is always the answer! Kamala would approve. she would likely back a federal grants –in-aid program to further this goal.

Does she already have the backing of Congress to get this passed?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frugal-one

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Look at the alternative. There is no question who is the better candidate!

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Thank You.
I was about to post this myself! Rob