Kamala Harris was kind enough to define an ‘Opportunity Economy’ in the first and only U.S. presidential debate. Harris first introduced the concept in her convention acceptance speech last month, mentioned it again on Tuesday night, and quickly posted this on her campaign website just the night before. “When the middle class is strong America is strong.”

Lowering costs on the middle class, Harris proposes a $6,000 child tax credit; a $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers; and a $50,000 tax deduction for start-up small businesses. “Not everybody got handed $400 million on a silver platter and then filed for bankruptcy six times,” she reminded us on Tuesday night. Still, Harris was sparse on specifics.

Powerful venture capitalists have pledged their support, and dozens of prominent Wall Street and tech executives have endorsed Harris. Goldman Sachs predicts she’ll boost the US economy's growth. Moody’s Analytics argues her policies will even create economic growth. She frequently reminds us of the some 200 Republican operatives that endorse her, but voters as yet aren't all convinced. The majority still trust Trump to do a better job on the economy.

War on Poverty

In response to a national poverty rate, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Establishing the Office of Economic Opportunity, the OEO quickly began administering federal funds and tax breaks to America’s poor. The date was 8 January 1964. The year Kamala Harris was born.

The EOA’s some forty programs were collectively aimed at eliminating poverty by improving living conditions for residents of low-income neighborhoods, and by helping the poor access economic opportunities. "I grew up a middle-class kid raised by a hard-working mother,” Harris reminded us at the debate. “She worked and saved to buy our first home when I was a teenager.” What Harris didn’t say or disclose was the EOA’s assist in that transaction.

As a part of a Great Society, Johnson believed in expanding the federal government's roles in education, health care and poverty. Effectively a continuation of FDR’s New Deal and Four Freedoms, John F. Kennedy had planned on proposing the anti-poverty legislation in a 1964 State of the Union address that Johnson ended up delivering. “Our aim is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure and above all prevent it."

Deregulation, growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to reducing federal aid to impoverished people in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which President Bill Clinton claimed "ended welfare as we know it."

The official poverty rate has fallen from 19.5% in 1963 to 11.1% today. However, the supplemental measure is rising, according to the White House. Child poverty, in particular, has reached 13.7% and is a predictable consequence of failing to extend the enhanced Child Tax Credit (CTC) which Harris intends to make permanent.

“I love our middle class,” Harris explained. "Once again my plan is to create a $6,000 child tax credit; $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers; and a $50,000 tax deduction for start-up small businesses who combined are the backbone of the American economy." Channeling Johnson she concluded, “freedom is no longer enough.”

While the most ambitious and controversial aspect of any Great Society is to eradicate poverty, it often presents a murky problem with a specific relief.

Johnson, a teacher, had observed extreme poverty in Texas among Mexican-Americans. His "unconditional war on poverty" was motivated by lifting blacks, immigrants and America’s poor out of poverty by eliminating hunger, illiteracy, and unemployment from American life.

The EOA spawned the Higher Education Act of 1965 which directed billions in Title IV federal monies into scholarships, loans and financial assistance for Americans students; Medicare provided health insurance to all Americans 65 and older; Medicaid provided health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources; and each and all were hitched to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which forbade discrimination.

President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration significantly expanded the federal government's role in the American social welfare system. But it wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic when the United States government transformed itself into something akin to a European-style welfare state.

Today, much of the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2020 has disappeared, including: a $300 billion one-time cash payment to individual’s who filed a tax return; $260 billion in increased unemployment benefits; the creation of the Paycheck Protection Program that provides forgivable loans to small businesses with an initial $350 billion in funding (later increased to $669 billion by subsequent legislation); and $500 billion in loans for corporations.

The United States had effectively become a welfare state during the pandemic era, but it was that nearly $1 trillion to small businesses and corporations that seems to resonate as a war call with Harris. 

The Civil Rights Act / Economic Opportunity Act lifted blacks and many immigrants just like Harris' mother into the middle class. Will Taylor Swift’s Instagram endorsement swing the young and undecideds to vote.gov? “No!” says JD Vance, “because she and her 284 million followers are fundamentally disconnected from most Americans.” Swift writes:

I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.

I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early.

With love and hope,
Taylor Swift
Childless Cat Lady