Consider economy before voting

Maybe you’re worried about the economy. Though the nation’s inflation rate is now under 3%, prices ballooned during COVID and haven’t come down since. What can we do about it?

Kamala Harris wants to put more money in ordinary people’s pockets. She’s proposed tax credits for families with children, including a $6,000 credit during a child’s first year and a $10,000 credit for first-time home buyers. She promises to continue President Biden’s drive to lower drug prices and fight price gouging. She wants to ease regulations and expand tax credits for small business start-ups. Her initiatives are designed to benefit the job-creating people who produce wealth and spread it. Prices will probably never return to pre-COVID levels, but she wants to help spendable incomes rise to meet them.

Meanwhile, like a true Republican, Donald Trump wants to expand the tax cuts of his previous term, further enriching the top 1%. That old trickle-down scam Republicans have been touting since the 1980s never worked and never will.

His other idea is even worse: a 10% or 20% tariff across the board, rising to 60% on Chinese goods. Economists know that tariff costs are simply passed along, raising prices. Moreover, retaliatory tariffs from other countries would cripple many industries, costing jobs and hurting everyone.

Trump’s tariff warfare has already been tried and failed. When he imposed new import taxes on China in 2019, prices shot up on the affected goods and China hit back by canceling orders for American grain. We had to borrow an additional $12 billion to balance out the farmers’ losses.

Just imagine what top-heavy Republican tax cuts and vastly expanded tariffs would cost us next time. Weigh that against help for young working families and small businesses, and vote for Democrats up and down the ticket.

Joe Glaser

Bowling Green