David Solomon, the powerful Wall Street executive whose research was cited in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, knocked Vice President Kamala Harris for using Goldman Sachs’ report to unfairly claim that her policies would result in a stronger economy.
Despite regularly railing against big banks like Goldman, Harris was quick to cite a recent report concluding her economic policies would be marginally better for economic growth, though negligible in the long run. The latter is a crucial piece of evidence that Harris left out, Solomon stated when asked if he watched the debate. “I think a lot more has been made of this than should be,” he told CNBC host Scott Wapner. “What it did is look at a handful of policy issues that have been put out by both sides, and it tried to model their impact on GDP growth… What it showed is the difference between the sets of policies they put forward is about two-tenths of one percent.”
No matter who wins office next year, markets historically react favorably during the first year of a new president. Harris can’t claim that her administration and ideas for governing will be any better for Americans’ stocks or bank accounts. “By the way, we have no idea if these policies, these things they talk about, will even be implemented,” Solomon went on. “I think this blew up into something bigger than it was intended to be.”
Since taking over for President Joe Biden, Harris has unveiled a wishlist of progressive economic policies that stand little chance of making it into law unless she can count on Democratic control of the U.S. House and Senate and the willingness of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to forgo the filibuster if necessary. She has promised to roll back Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy, boost tariffs on Chinese goods and curb inflation, though not as drastically as Trump has promised, according to USA Today. Those vague pledges were incorporated into Goldman’s report, which found that “the hit to growth from tariffs and tighter immigration policy would outweigh” benefits brought by Trump’s pro-growth policies.
Moreover, the two-tenths of one percent difference relies on estimating Harris’s recent policies which have vastly changed since her 2019 campaign for president. Back then, she had pledged to implement a federal ban on fracking, sharp mandates on transitions to clean energy and electric vehicles, and expanding the cost of caring for recent migrants, including gender reassignment surgeries. Those answers, delivered in an ACLU questionnaire, stunned CNN investigators who challenged Harris on whether her latest appeals to the center of American politics are sincere.
Undecided voters in some of the nation’s battleground states also found Harris’s lack of detailed policies concerning. “I still don’t know what she is for,” said Mark Kadish, 61, an entrepreneur in Florida, told Reuters. “There was no real meat and bones for her plans.” Robert Wheeler, 48, a security firm executive in Nevada who was previously leaning toward Harris, said her posturing and platitudes left him feeling more committed to voting for Trump who he said has actually proposed tangible policies to back up his promises. “I felt like the whole debate was Kamala Harris telling me why not to vote for Donald Trump instead of why she’s the right candidate,” Wheeler said.
