An old joke: A moyel (a professional circumciser of infant boys) was asked how much he was paid for a procedure. “I get five dollars plus tips” was his answer. Kamala Harris’s newly adopted advocacy of excluding tip money from income tax is much, much more than just a mildly sleazy tactic. This is made particularly inflammatory by her having previously gone to the trouble of breaking a tie in the Senate so as to pass a bill that, among other things, exponentially ramped up the IRS’s capacity to enforce the tax on tips.

This is way more than just a passing talking point that will soon get lost in all the other words coming out of the campaigns. It goes beyond simply confirming the impression that Harris is seriously lacking in substance. She doesn’t even pay attention to her own actions. She may be dangerously out of control. People in sensitive executive positions cannot afford such a lapse of behavior.

I would holler from the rooftops for the Trump campaign to exploit this weakness -- but I’m sure they already know this. The only distraction would be the enormous volume of other flaws in Harris’s persona.

There is, however, a slight catch in exempting tips from taxable income. Human nature being what it is, opportunists would likely lower their wages and increase their intake of gratuities. This could be handled by fine-tuning the definition of a tip -- as being a voluntary contribution to a server or other facilitator. This would also suppress a recent trend towards enforcing tips in restaurants by putting them on the menu and in the bill as a “service charge.” This could also be called the European system. A friend who served tables in a restaurant where a lot of European tourists went to eat, complained bitterly over how poorly they tipped -- since the gratuity wasn’t included in the tab.

Trump has also put out more bait for Kamala to swallow. Ending the income tax on Social Security benefits is the newest. Indexing the tax on capital gains to inflation harkens back to when he was still president. Most likely Kamala’s handlers will hold her down so she can’t rise to this bait… but much of the damage has already been done.

The best the Democrat brain trust has been able to come up with is imposing a tax on unrealized capital gains. It’s obviously a craven money grab… but it is also fraught with negative consequences. First, since the tax would be levied on a yet-to-happen capital gain, the amount of the gain would have to be estimated… but by whom? Second, since no transaction is yet to occur, there are no proceeds from which to pay the tax. The victims of this foolish scheme would have to go out-of-pocket or borrow in order to stay out of jail. And just now, Kamala has been spewing nonsense about imposing price controls to keep those greedy corporations from gouging their customers under the false cloak of inflation.

My hunch is that this is only going to get worse. Which leads to the question: Will Kamala survive the Democrat convention? Or will so many negatives about her candidacy accumulate that, just like with Biden, they’ll switch her out for someone else? This may explain why the Democrats picked such a late date for their big meeting… allowing more time during the lead-up to make major adjustments. The problem being… who else do they have to put out in front of the voters?

Democrats don’t like losing. Often mentioned is their serious concern over down-ballot races that might be (ahem) negatively impacted by trouble at the top of the ticket. Case in point: Adam “Pencil-neck” Schiff was a particularly vocal advocate for Biden to drop out. He just happens to be running to inherit Diane Feinstein’s Senate seat. Need I remind you that the Democrats have 23 senate seats up for grabs, while the Republicans have a whopping ten. History grinds on such moments.

Image: AT via Magic Studio