Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday’s front page, has any proposals to cut the rapidly increasing national debt. Instead, both are proposing to hand out goodies to strategically positioned voters.

Harris, with an eye on polls showing young voters not as pro-Democratic as in the past, has been talking about providing $25,000 for down payments to first-time homebuyers. With an eye on young families and single parents, she has also called for restoring part of the refundable child tax credit that was part of what President Joe Biden has now conceded was the misnamed 2021 Inflation Reduction Act.

Trump, hoping to win the electoral votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as he did in 2016 and did not in 2020, has called for cutting taxes on domestic manufacturing firms and reducing taxes on overtime pay.

Nevada, 70% of whose voters live in Clark County, with its hordes of gambling and hospitality workers in Las Vegas, has come in for attention as well. Trump was the first to propose eliminating income tax on tips. Harris, hoping to carry the state as Biden did, endorsed the same policy.

You will search long and hard for statements from major economists and policy experts associated with either party for serious arguments supporting these policies, just as you can find few serious advocates........

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