FACT CHECK: Kamala Harris campaign platform makes promises based on false assumptions

Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats’ nominee for president, finally released her policy platform Monday, a day before her first debate with former President Donald Trump.

The Harris platform makes various claims about the root causes of issues faced by America and the way Harris plans to address those issues. The claims underlying her policy promises are false, however.

Here is a look at what the Harris campaign released under the title “A New Way Forward.”

Harris Vows to ‘Secure Border’ After 4 Years of Open Borders 

Harris’ policy platform says that, if elected, she will “secure our border and fix our broken immigration system.” The Biden-Harris administration, however, abruptly shifted the nation’s border policies on Day One, enabling a massive influx of illegal immigrants since 2021.

The platform focuses on “the bipartisan border bill” that failed to pass the House of Representatives in 2023 and suggests the legislation would solve illegal immigration.

The platform blames Trump for “killing the bipartisan border bill” although out of office and thereby failing to solve the border crisis. The platform states that Harris would sign the legislation, suggesting that nothing more is needed to solve the underlying issues.

Congressional Republicans, however, said the border bill was political posturing and not a true effort to secure the border.

The bill “spends $20 billion to not secure the border, but to more efficiently encounter, process, and disperse illegal migrants,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters.

Harris arguably shares responsibility for the border crisis with President Joe Biden, who tasked her in March 2021 with solving the “root causes” of illegal immigration from three Central American nations. That’s when both supporters and critics began referring to Harris as Biden’s “border czar.”

Harris Says Equality Act Will ‘Protect Civil Rights and Freedoms’

Harris now promises to “protect civil rights and freedoms” by passing the Equality Act to “enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing, education, and more into law.”

But critics say the Equality Act would undermine women’s civil rights in order to help a minority of men who claim to be women.

The bill would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It would force schools and other programs to allow biological males who “identify” as females to compete against girls and women in sports and use private female facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms.

Harris Blames Inflation on Price Gouging, Not Government Spending

Harris’ policy statement on inflation suggests again that price gouging, not government spending, is the central driver of rising prices.

“As president, she will direct her administration to crack down on anti-competitive practices that let big corporations jack up prices and undermine the competition that allows all businesses to thrive while keeping prices low for consumers,” the campaign website states.

However, as Heritage Foundation budget expert EJ Antoni pointed out, there is a far more obvious culprit: government spending.

Antoni, an economist, noted: “One of the functions of money is that of a measuring tool. If a yardstick were to shrink from 36 inches down to just 30, it would take 120 of these shortened yardsticks to cover the distance of a football field, instead of 100. As the dollar has lost value, it takes more dollars to measure the value of the things we buy.”

If price gouging caused 40-year record-high inflation, Antoni asked, did businessmen “magically” become greedy when Biden and Harris took office?

“Were corporations never greedy in the 40 years leading up to Biden’s inflationary expansion of government?” he asked. “Businesses haven’t even passed all their higher costs on to consumers; if they’re trying to be greedy, they’re doing it all wrong.”

Harris’ policy platform also tacitly admits that it is implausible that price gouging is responsible for increases in prices. The platform notes that her “first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries” would “build on the anti-price gouging statutes already in place in 37 states.”

If bans on price gouging were the solution to inflation, wouldn’t these bans have prevented the problem in those 37 states?

Harris Promises Crackdown on Iran, Though Biden-Harris Admin’s Loose Sanctions Netted Regime Billions

Harris’ platform talks a tough game on Iran, the world’s top sponsor of radical Islamist terrorism.

A section on keeping America safe proclaims: “Vice President Harris will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to protect U.S. forces and interests from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups.”

Tehran is the top financial sponsor of the terrorist group Hamas, which infamously slaughtered 1,139 Israelis—including women and children—on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

Harris’ new policy pronouncements overlook the fact that the Biden-Harris administration loosened U.S. economic sanctions on Iran, netting the Islamist regime $71 billion more before Oct. 7 than under Trump-Pence administration policies.

If Harris would “never hesitate” to protect U.S. interests from Iran, did she object to the administration’s move to loosen sanctions?

Harris Repeats Widely Debunked Claim That Trump Campaign Created Project 2025 

The Harris policy platform includes several tabs contrasting the vice president’s positions with what it calls “Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda,” although Trump repeatedly has distanced himself from The Heritage Foundation-led Presidential Transition Project.

In fact, a campaign official for Harris already has acknowledged that the vice president has deliberately misled voters about Project 2025.

Harris and her campaign repeatedly have tried to link Project 2025 to Trump, despite the former president’s pushback.

In a particularly ironic claim, Harris said Trump would implement his Project 2025 agenda to consolidate power, bring the Department of Justice and the FBI under his direct control so he can give himself unchecked legal power, go after opponents, and “rule as a dictator on ‘Day One.’”

However, the Biden-Harris Justice Department targeted pro-lifers and other Americans with dissenting political and religious views, particularly after the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand in June 2022.

For instance, a Michigan jury recently found seven pro-life activists guilty of engaging in a conspiracy against rights and violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, for peacefully protesting outside an abortion clinic.

The charges against the pro-life activists were brought by DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.

Launched two years ago by The Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 has grown to a coalition of 110 conservative organizations that developed a transition plan for the next presidential administration. The Heritage-led coalition considers its work to be nonpartisan and offers it to whoever occupies the White House in January 2025.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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