As the presidential race enters its final weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris is positioning herself as the champion of middle-class America, vowing to finally make the wealthy pay their fair share. Yet a closer look at her record over the past four years reveals a stark contrast between her rhetoric and reality. Far from soaking the rich, Harris’ policies have funneled resources to the wealthy and corporations while burdening middle-class taxpayers.
Corporate subsidies have exploded under the Biden-Harris administration. In 2021, the 10-year budget allocation for corporate subsidies was $1.2 trillion. Three years later, it has now surpassed $2 trillion.
The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act included $54 billion in corporate subsidies—Intel alone received almost $20 billion in grants and loans through the CHIPS Act. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) uncapped a slew of energy subsidies, massively expanding energy production and investment tax credits, and according to the Brookings Institution, will cost an estimated $780 billion, just in corporate welfare, by 2031.
The beneficiaries of this largesse are extremely concentrated. Three-quarters of the benefits of the IRA are shared by just 15 large corporations, seven of which are foreign. Wind turbine manufacturers like General Electric, Vestas, and Siemens/Gamesa—who collectively produce 79 percent of all turbines—are among the biggest winners. These companies also have a presence on the board of the wind energy lobby, the American Clean Power Association.
But it isn’t just the corporate welfare. The IRA’s consumer subsidies also disproportionately benefit the wealthy. Roughly half of the tax subsidies for electric vehicles are largely captured by big corporations (Tesla, Ford Motor Co., General Motors), while almost four-fifths of taxpayers claiming these credits earn over $100,000 a year.
This administration has consistently pushed policies that favor higher-income Americans over lower- and middle-income Americans. The extended pause on student loan payments, which lasted until late 2022, primarily aided graduates who are lawyers and physicians—who make an average salary of $176,000 and $264,000, respectively—while being paid for by taxpayers, many of whom chose not to go to college.
Hellbound and Down 