In Kamala Harris’s worldview, having the choice of whether or not to join a union is unfree, and being forced to join a union means you are ‘free.’
The Wall Street Journal editorial board is correct. Kamala Harris’s just-released policy white paper, “A New Way Forward,” completely misstates what “right-to-work” laws do:
She will also prevent misclassification of employees, and override so-called “right-to-work” laws that prevent workers from freely organizing.
“Right-to-work” laws allow employees to work for an employer without joining a union or paying union fees. That’s it. They are in place in 28 states. As the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures summarizes, “labor unions still operate in those states, but workers cannot be compelled to become members as a requirement of their job. On March 24, 2023, Michigan became the first state in decades to repeal right-to-work after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed Michigan Senate Bill 34.” The only thing “preventing” the organization of workers in those states is that some workers don’t want to join the union!
This is a complete inversion of the word “free.” If you are forced to join a union at your workplace by state law, then you’re not really “free,” then, are you? And yet in Kamala-world, having the choice of whether or not to join a union is unfree, and being forced to join a union is “free.”
Meanwhile, earlier this week, billionaire and reality television host Mark Cuban argued on CNN that Trump is the true socialist in the race, and the candidate who wants to enact price controls:
TAPPER: On a recent Harris campaign call, you compared policy proposals made by Trump to those from independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who’s a socialist. What do you mean?
CUBAN: Well, it’s a race for socialism, right? Bernie said that credit card companies should cap their rates, their interest rates at 15 percent. Donald Trump being the socialist that he is, had to beat Bernie. So Donald Trump won out and recommended that interest rate caps be set to 10 percent. That — I mean, the fact that he’s even suggesting price controls and price caps is socialism 101. You haven’t heard that from the vice president. You have heard that from Donald Trump. Well, I mean, he should change. What can I say?
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Well, why do I say, how do you interpret what she’s doing in terms of price gouging, taking on price gouging by food companies because a lot of critics have said that that is a form of price controls?
CUBAN: I’m glad you asked me that check because price get — taking on price gouging is not price controls. She’s not saying what the price of tomatoes should be, what she’s saying is when there’s a crisis and there will be other crisis, there’ll be hurricanes, there’ll be tornadoes, there’ll be floods, there’ll be other disasters. And when those disasters happen, she wants to be in a position to be able to say, no, you can’t jack up those prices by 40 percent. You have to stay within a particular realm, a particular guideline. And by the way, there are already 37 states that have similar guidelines. All she’s doing is saying were just going to make that a national law. So, that’s certainly not price caps or price controls at all.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is the king of price caps.
First, back in mid August, “in a statement released late Wednesday night, the Harris campaign said that if elected, she would push for the first-ever federal ban on food price hikes, with sweeping new powers for federal authorities.” As Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell — no defender of Trump — laid out, “It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The [Federal Trade Commission] would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.”
Harris may not have mentioned this proposal much since then, but that doesn’t mean she magically transformed into a principled opponent of price controls.
Meanwhile, Trump did indeed say, at a New York rally, that if elected president he would put a “temporary cap on credit-card interest rates” of “around 10 percent.” He said, “We can’t let them make 25 or 30 percent.” Quite a few free-market economists and conservatives criticized him for that proposal.