When Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz said, “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness,” he voiced the quiet part out loud. The Harris-Walz economic plan—”opportunity economy”—is nothing more than American socialism dressed in cheap disguise to fool the American people.
In their mind, an opportunity economy is their chance to use the federal government to force economic outcomes consistent with their political agenda. Last year, Harris spoke to a group of students at Hampton University, stating, “if we want fair outcomes, we must understand what are disparities, and then accommodate and adjust for those disparities if we want equal outcomes.”
Harris claims that her opportunity economy will lessen the economic burden on the average American while the country deals with record inflation. If Harris and Walz were sincere about reducing this burden, we would have seen these ideas implemented nationally, or at least in Walz’s home state of Minnesota.
But quite the opposite is true.
Adam McCann, a financial writer for WalletHub, recently published an analysis of 23 major cities in the United States across two key metrics related to the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. His research found that of the 23 major cities, Walz’s Minneapolis ranked first in economic impact of inflation.
In fact, the top 10 cities with the heaviest yokes are predominantly Democrat-led cities in Democrat-led states. Instead of reducing the burden from the worst inflationary period in 40 years, Democrat leaders across the country have implemented policies that add heavy bags of sand on the backs of Americans, who are struggling under the weight of record inflation.
It is difficult to take seriously the promise of an “opportunity economy” from people who do not understand capitalism and who have never worked in the private sector. Both Harris and Walz have spent their entire careers in the comfort and safety of the public sector at the local, state, or federal levels.
If they understood the dynamics of private industry, they would see the value of feasibility studies—small-scale experiments to test a hypothesis or assumption. Democrat-led cities and states serve as real-life feasibility studies, and the outcomes have consistently proven to be failures economically, academically, and socially.
In Democrat-led sectors, people who can afford to relocate have been doing so for the past 15 years to Republican-governed counties and states.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, tax and regulation-laden California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois lost a combined 4 million residents between 2010 and 2019. In a recent article, Republican Governors Association Deputy Communications Director Mike Demkiw said, “People are desperate to escape the heavy handed, regulation ridden big government approach pushed by liberal governors.”
What Harris, Walz, and Democrat elites fail to understand is that the United States inherently has a successful “opportunity economy” model—it’s called free market enterprise or capitalism. From their perspective, disrupting and replacing capitalism is the objective. However, they cannot say that openly to the American people until after they hold the seats of power.
Kendall Qualls is an Executive Faculty-in-Residence at Crown College School of Business. He was a Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota in the 2022 election cycle. Mr. Qualls was a 30-year executive in the healthcare industry. He is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and he has been married to his wife for 38 years.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
Kendall Qualls
Kendall Qualls is the President of TakeCharge, Minnesota which is an organization committed to supporting the notion that the promise of America works for everyone regardless of race or station in life. Mr. Qualls was a Republican candidate for Governor of Minnesota. Prior to his candidacy, he was a health care executive and served in the U.S. Army as an Artillery officer. Mr. Qualls has been married for 36 years and has five children.
