The first two items of business will be codifying a national right to abortion, and passing a voting rights act which will ensure equal access to the ballot and end gerrymandering of House districts. Without gerrymandering, the Democrats will pick up a consistent edge in the House going forward. – Photo France 24
The Harris Agenda
By Nayyer Ali MD
As the presidential campaign heads into its final six weeks, it is quite clear what a Trump return to the White House means. Endless chaos, bizarre policy ideas that go nowhere, and a revolving cast of third-rate hacks jockeying for power and influence with a malignant narcissist and sociopath acting as ring leader. But what does a Harris presidency portend? What exactly would she try to accomplish if given power?
The answers to that question are highly contingent on which party controls the Congress. It is almost certain that if Harris wins the White House the Democrats will pick up enough seats (they only need 5 out of 435 seats) to gain control of the House. Obviously, they would like to win 20-30 seats to give themselves a comfortable majority but Nancy Pelosi was able to fully pass Biden’s immense agenda with only a five-seat majority, so as long as the Democrats get control, they should be able to move legislation through the House. The big question will be the Senate, where Democrats currently hold 51 out of 100 seats. They will need to hold at least 50 to keep control of the chamber, and they are guaranteed to lose one seat in West Virginia, where the Democrat is retiring and the state is deeply Republican at this point. There are two other Democratic-held seats in Ohio and Montana where the Democratic incumbents are in tough fights to hold onto their seats. Conversely, if Harris wins a landslide, it might be enough to pick up Republican-held senate seats in Florida and perhaps Texas. But if Harris wins and the Democrats end up with control of both the House and Senate, we have a pretty good idea of what they would do.
To start with, they will probably get rid of the filibuster requirement that clogs up the Senate. Under the filibuster rule, legislation needs 60 votes to pass, not just a simple majority. This is not in the Constitution, but a relic of a 19 th century rule that has become routinely abused in the modern era. With that out of the way, the Democrats can pass laws with a simple majority.
The first two items of business will be codifying a national right to abortion, and passing a voting rights act which will ensure equal access to the ballot and end gerrymandering of House districts. Without gerrymandering, the Democrats will pick up a consistent edge in the House going forward. Next will be a raise in the minimum wage to 15 dollars per hour, after having been stuck at 7.25 dollars since 2007.
Harris on the campaign trail has promised three other items in her economic agenda. Tax credits for new small businesses and first-time home buyers will likely be made available. More importantly, a refundable child tax credit (CTC) will be passed. It is unclear how generous this will be, but in 2021 Biden passed similar legislation that was temporary for just one year, but did provide 300 dollars per month per child to middle and low-income households. This CTC cut the child poverty rate in half, all by itself. Look for Harris to do something similar but permanent. Finally, Harris wants to boost the supply of housing by 3 million new homes. This is sorely needed in many coastal cities where for decades building has been limited and constrained by local politicians. These constraints boost home prices for those who already have a home but shut many new homebuyers and renters and out of the market due to those same high prices.
While Harris would obviously not try to implement “Medicare for All” as a healthcare plan, we can expect that she will try to improve healthcare access for all Americans. She will probably try to get the remaining states that have up to now refused the expansion of Medicaid to cover the working poor to change their policies, and she will try to strengthen regulations on insurance companies to limit out-of-pocket costs to enrollees for prescription medications.
Taxes will rise. In particular, they will rise for the wealthy and corporations. Harris has said she wants to put the corporate tax rate up to 28% from 21% at present. There will likely be increases in tax rates on the wealthiest, those making over 400,000 dollars per year. Social Security taxes may be imposed on income above 1 million dollars, and taxes on capital gains will also go up for those making over a million. Inheritance taxes will also go up on extremely large estates (think billionaires passing on their wealth to their children).
Harris will continue to work on climate change. The IRA passed by Biden was an excellent start, but Harris may look to further push on this critical issue. On foreign policy, it will mostly be a continuation of Biden. NATO will be the cornerstone of American security, and Ukraine will continue to receive aid. Israel will be pushed towards a cease-fire and a two-state settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians, but it is unclear how hard Harris will push Israel to give the Palestinians an equitable deal.
Gun control will be another Harris priority. We could easily get a permanent ban on assault weapons and a closure of the gun show loophole that allows gun purchases at gun shows to avoid background checks and other measures. We would certainly get universal background checks. Harris may even go for some aggressive gun control measures such as requiring a license and registration for all firearms and a national database of ballistics for every gun in America. That would allow law enforcement to quickly identify the source of any shooting.
There are two other areas where Harris may go for a very aggressive Democratic agenda. Statehood for Washington DC and Puerto Rico could be passed. If that were to happen it would permanently add four Democratic Senators to the Senate as both DC and Puerto Rico would be reliably liberal. The other major reform would be on the Supreme Court. Right now the Court has a 6 to 3 conservative majority, and it has issued a wide range of very conservative opinions, including granting Trump immunity for many of his actions as President. Harris could do one of two things. She could add four justices to the Supreme Court and pick four liberals, giving liberals a 7 to 6 majority. This would be attacked by Republicans as “packing the court” though the size of the court has always been up to Congress and the President and is not specified in the Constitution.
The other option is to impose term limits on the Justices, and 18 years has been suggested by many staggered such that every President gets to pick two justices during their four years in office. In that scenario, Harris could add two liberal judges, while the eldest judges who happen to be conservatives (Thomas and Alito) would be termed out, flipping the court to a 5 to 4 liberal majority. The Republicans would be apoplectic over any attempt to take away their control of the Supreme Court, but it would just be payback for the tricks they played to get control in the first place. Meanwhile, Harris would reliably appoint 200 or more other Federal judges to District and Appellate Courts aroundthe country.
