Andy Kessler, the investor and Wall Street Journal columnist, is a perfect embodiment of what is surely the Trumpiest constituency in America: guys who have big wallets and tiny brains.
Kessler’s most recent Journal column is a rote walk-through of Hannity-level conservative talking points about why electing Kamala Harris will kill the economy. Four more years of a Democratic presidency will kill the stock market, he argues, because “The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.6% for the entire decade of the 1970s.” (How has the stock market been doing under the current Democratic presidency? Kessler doesn’t say.)
The item on his list that caught my interest is his squib on Harris’s housing policy. Harris believes local zoning regulations have restricted the housing supply, causing prices to soar in cities where the supply is prevented from meeting soaring demand. Kessler’s position is that loosening these regulations to permit more construction is communism:
Federal housing control. Ms. Harris wants to add three million new homes. Does this mean blocky Soviet-style housing for everyone? There’s already a glut of homes, especially in the South. This is a progressive power grab to take away local zoning control. Ask Californians about mandatory Accessory Dwelling Units to expand housing — especially low-income housing — in neighborhoods and near train stations. The state decides, not local zoning laws.
The Harris plan also involves subsidizing homeownership with a tax credit. There is a persuasive critique that, by subsidizing demand, the tax credit will merely serve to push prices higher. Kessler could make a sound market-based attack on that aspect of the Harris plan. Instead, he ignores it and trains his anger on her proposal to increase supply by reducing regulation.
Kessler’s primary confusion here is that he cannot tell the........