News outlet writers are starting to object, however mildly, to Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ reluctance to do interviews and news conferences. Harris did do the one interview recently, with a friendly interviewer and while accompanied by her Comfort Running Mate, but that’s it. The press does have a beef about her apparent fear of sitting for unscripted interviews with objective interviewers—and doing them frequently and alone—and to have unscripted, free-wheeling news conferences of some duration and frequency where she wouldn’t know the questions in advance.
The press, though, couches their objections in the premise that without these interviews and news conferences, they won’t know what her platform is or what policies she intends to push were she elected.
Those of us outside the press, us less credulous average Americans, do know what her platform and policies are—Harris has told us quite clearly over the last several years, right up to mid-2024 when she supplanted Joe Biden as Party’s candidate.
Here is her platform made manifest, from what she has said and what she’s saying now, even if her remarks today are scattered about, and her remarks yesterday are being busily ignored by those same news outlet writers.
| What She Said Then | What She Says Now |
| There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking. | I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking, as vice president I did not ban fracking, as president I will not ban fracking |
| “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal” And: once pledged to close all privately-run immigration detention centers “on day one” during her first presidential campaign |
Harris’ campaign manager: “I think at this point, you know, the policies that are, you know, having a real impact on ensuring that we have security and order at our border are policies that will continue” |
| January 2017 criticized t Obama’s refusal to veto a UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements. | Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters. I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza…the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies [not set at the feet of Hamas]. |
| What She Said Then | What She Still Says |
| Tax each stock and bond trade Roll back 2017 tax cuts Raise capital gains tax rates at the same rates as ordinary income |
Raise corporate taxes Tax unrealized capital gains |
| 4% “income-based premium” on households making more than $100,000 annually to pay for her version of “Medicare for All” $10 trillion in public and private spending over 10 years to create millions of jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions |
Expand child tax credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, to be paid for by “there’s a great return on investment.” Spending $25,000 via “tax credit” to cover the down payment costs for “first-time home buyers” |
Do we believe her when she was saying what she believed, or do we believe her foxhole conversions of convenience today? I suggest, on the other hand, that where her positions today are substantially of those from yesterday, we certainly can take her at her word, and these are part of her clearly stated platform, also.
I have a practical problem (beyond the rotten economic problems) with the $25,000 tax credit to help first-time home buyers: a tax credit generated refund will arrive at the bank account of such a buyer after the fact. In order to qualify for the credit, the down payment must have been made in the prior tax year … and where did that money come from?
How did the first-time buyer manage to make the allegedly prohibitive down payment before he/she/it received the (much later) tax credit? Would a bank/other funding source loan the money in advance, on the premise of the buyer a/qualifying for the later tax credit, and b/having the money (the credit cash received would be reduced by any tax owed on income over that year) with which to repay?
Temporal sequence matters.