What Kamala Harris believes

The Wall Street Journal

Democrats are rapidly unifying behind Kamala Harris as their party nominee, yet the Vice President remains relatively unknown to most Americans. That means it’s important to look at her record to see what she believes.

As VP she’s closely identified with the Biden agenda, for better or worse, and she embraced that record in remarks on Monday. She said President Biden’s first term has “surpassed the legacy” of most Presidents who have served two.

So mark her down as endorsing the spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness. Until she says otherwise, we should also assume she’s in favor of Mr. Biden’s $5 trillion tax increase in 2025.

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The Vice President’s four years as a Senator from California are another window on her worldview. She sponsored a bill to create a $6,000 guaranteed income for families making up to $100,000. Another Harris proposal: A refundable tax credit that would effectively cap rents and utility payments at 30% of income. Liberal economists panned the subsidy because it would drive up rents.

She co-sponsored legislation with Bernie Sanders that would pay tuition at four-year public colleges for students from families making up to $125,000. This is more honest than the Administration’s back-end student loan cancellation. But it would cost $700 billion over a decade and encourage colleges to increase tuition.

Another Bernie mind-meld: Single-payer healthcare. Ms. Harris co-sponsored his Medicare for All legislation paid for by higher income taxes. She tweaked Bernie’s plan when running for President in 2019 by extending the phase-in to 10 years from four and exempting households making less than $100,000 from the “income-based premium.” But it would still put government in charge of all American healthcare over time.

As a San Francisco Democrat, Ms. Harris shares the state’s hostility to fossil fuels. She used her power as California Attorney General to launch an investigation into Exxon Mobil over its carbon emissions. In 2019 she endorsed a nationwide ban on oil and gas fracking, which would cost tens of thousands of jobs and cause power outages like those that often occur in her home state. Expect this to be a GOP talking point in Pennsylvania.

One question to ask is whether the Vice President wants to restructure the Supreme Court. She said in 2019 she was “open” to adding more Justices, but that idea doesn’t poll well. Does she agree with Mr. Biden’s mooted plan to endorse “reforms” to the High Court that would make the Justices subject to Congressional supervision?

Mr. Biden famously put Ms. Harris in charge of border policy, and we know how that has turned out. Rather than push for border policy changes, her first instinct was to blame the rush of migrants on “root causes” in developing countries, including corruption, violence, poverty and “lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience.”

Climate change makes the U.S. border a sieve? Apparently so. “In Honduras, in the wake of hurricanes, we must deliver food, shelter, water and sanitation to the people,” Ms. Harris declared. “And in Guatemala, as farmers endure continuous droughts, we must work with them to plant drought-resistant crops.” These “root causes” take decades to address, and in the meantime she had nothing to say about actual border security.

Ms. Harris’s foreign policy views aren’t well known, or perhaps even well formed, apart from promoting Mr. Biden’s policies. While she has backed the Administration’s military assistance to Ukraine, she has equivocated about support for Israel. In March she chastised Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Leaks to the press say officials at the National Security Council toned down her speech’s criticism of Israel.

She lambasted the Trump Administration for killing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani, claiming it could lead to bigger war in the Mideast. The killing chastened Iran’s rulers instead, at least until the Biden Administration began to ease sanctions and tried to repeat the 2015 nuclear deal.

It will be especially important for the press to ask Ms. Harris about her national security views. If her handlers control her as much as White House advisers have Mr. Biden, we’ll know they’re afraid that the Vice President might not be able to handle the scrutiny.

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A fair conclusion from all of this is that Ms. Harris is a standard California progressive on most issues, often to the left of Mr. Biden. Perhaps as she reintroduces herself to the public in the coming weeks, she will modify some of those views. She would be wise to do so if she wants to win.

Given the rush by Democrats to anoint Ms. Harris as their nominee, the press has a particular obligation to tell the public about who she is and what she really thinks. Does she believe California is a model for the country?

This editorial originally appeared in the July 22 edition of The Wall Street Journal.