Kamala’s tie-breaking Senate votes as VP led to drastic increases in costs of food, rent, gas

In his late-night speech at the Democratic National Convention, President Joe Biden thanked Harris for her work in passing the misnomered Inflation Reduction Act. "Guess who cast the tie-breaking vote? Vice President soon-to-be President Kamala Harris, and now it’s the law of the land," Biden said, referring to the $739 billion spending spree that the Senate passed by 51-50 because Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in August 2022. But the legacy of Harris’ role in passing the legislation has changed as the effects of inflation have become evident, from the price of homes to the cost of groceries.

Inflation has not been this bad since the 1970s and the era of President Jimmy Carter, Fox News noted. Rent, for example, has increased by 13 percent and new mortgages by 36 percent. The cost of baby food has shot up by 13 percent, while frozen vegetables increased by 14 percent, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), who noted that food staples like butter, bread, flour, and breakfast cereals have all jumped in price since Harris helped push the Inflation Reduction Act into law.

Although inflation on some goods and services has declined in the last two years, the Biden-Harris legacy for the last four has been one of sometimes massive inflation. Fox News cited the example of new mortgage rates climbing by 156 percent under Biden-Harris. Other examples documented by ATR include the price of gas rising by 35 percent, energy by 33 percent, and transportation by 28 percent. Eggs are up by 53 percent, baby food by 30 percent, frozen vegetables by 28 percent, bread by 24 percent, and milk by 17 percent.

But that wasn’t the only inflationary bill that Harris moved passed the Senate with her crucial vote. In March of 2021, the vice president was also crucial to the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

"Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the two biggest legislative drivers of inflation: the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. She also supported the Biden-Harris regulatory regime which imposed additional costs on households," Grover Norquist, president of ATR, told Fox News.

"And now she vows to make matters worse by imposing a long list of tax increases," Norquist added. "She has endorsed a carbon tax, a 44.6 percent capital gains tax, and a 28 percent federal corporate tax rate, higher than China’s 25 percent and the EU [European Union] average of 21 percent. Americans will have even less take-home pay."

In response to the Fox News story, Democratic National Committee spokesman Alex Floyd suggested that former President Donald Trump’s economic legacy was having “the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover” and claimed his policies, if re-elected as president, would be “an inflation bomb.”