(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party, or candidate, on the part Newsmax.)
OPINION
Focus on Harris's Small Business Record, Not Her Rhetoric
Kamala Harris is desperately trying to shed her past as a San Francisco leftist who's supported a fracking ban, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, confiscating guns, and decriminalizing illegal immigration in an attempt to make herself palatable to independent voters.
Key to this rebranding effort is pretending to be a small business champion.
There are 33 million small businesses nationally, and they are the nation's most trusted institution. Harris is trying to trade on their good name to generate support.
As part of this effort, Harris is heavily promoting her proposal to expand the small business startup tax deduction to $50,000.
"When I look at the tax code, a $5,000 deduction for startup companies, for small businesses is not enough for anybody to start up a small business in 2024," Harris said at an event last week in Detroit.
Unfortunately, this policy does nothing to help the nation's existing small businesses struggling in today's economy.
Nor does it help the many new small businesses that can't turn a profit. The policy is little more than a distraction from one of the most anti-small business presidential candidates in history.
Harris is hoping that by promoting this deduction she can obscure her far bigger and broader anti-small business proposals.
For example, Harris plans to let the small business components of the Tax Cuts and Job Act (TCJA) expire at the end of 2025. She supports raising the corporate tax rate, which more than one million small businesses are subject to, by 33%.
Harris also wants to prevent small business owners from passing down their establishments to their heirs without paying a massive tax penalty on phantom inflation capital gains.
And she has already implemented an electric vehicle mandate that will ban gas vehicles that small businesses depend on to conduct business.
Small businesses aren't fooled by Kamala's performance act. According to JCN's new nationwide poll of small business owners, Trump leads Harris by 12 points.
Small businesses are focusing on Harris's actions, not her words.
What's unique about this presidential election is that voters don't have to judge the candidates' platforms and policy proposals to guess how they'd act in office.
Because Trump and Harris made up the last two administrations, Americans can simply look at their records to see who would be better for small businesses.
While in office, Harris pursued inflationary spending, anti-energy policies, and environmental and labor regulations that have decimated small businesses.
She was the deciding vote on $3 trillion worth of reckless spending that's increased inflation by 21% since she took office, reducing Americans' real wages.
Biden and Harris have pursued anti-energy policies from day one of their administration when they canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, taking over 250 actions that have made it harder to produce energy in America. And they have implemented more than 1,000 regulations at an economic cost of more than $2 trillion.
In contrast, Trump presided over a small business boom.
As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, he implemented a 20% tax deduction that nearly 26 million small businesses depend on each year.
He cut eight regulations for every one implemented.
And he dramatically increased energy production, resulting in cheap gas and low inflation.
For small businesses, the choice of who is the right candidate is clear.
Harris had four years in the U.S. Senate and four years as vice president to advance her small business tax deduction and chose not to because she doesn't really believe in it.
She is just pretending to support small businesses now when it's convenient.
All Americans should join small businesses and judge Harris's record, not her rhetoric, when casting their votes.
Alfredo Ortiz is CEO of Job Creators Network, author of The Real Race Revolutionaries, and co-host of The Main Street Matters podcast.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.