[Baltimore Sun] The Kamala Harris ‘to-do list’ could’ve been done, Maryland Republicans say

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Kamala Harris in the final week of the campaign has sought to cement one of the biggest differences between her and Donald Trump, often saying that he has an enemies list and she has a to-do list.

But some of the moderate Republicans she’s trying to persuade, along with the GOP faithful, question why she didn’t get some of that to-do list done during the last four years. They also worry her bullet-point plans would steer the country into peril.

Harris recently shared a list of 14 priorities that includes tax cuts, lower prescription costs, a bipartisan border security bill, affordable housing and legalizing recreational marijuana, which has drawn the praise of Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who in a video posted on X recently called Harris “the leader we need in this moment.”

Harris’ proposed tax deduction of up to $50,000 for small businesses startups worries moderate Republicans like Harold Mendelson, however.

“That’s sort of the scary one,” said Mendelson,who lives in Baltimore County. “She wants to lower taxes on one hand and give away money on the other hand. It’s not logical.”

He describes himself as a Larry Hogan Republican who would never vote for Trump, but Mendelson said he can’t vote for Harris either.

“I’m in the middle,” he said. “Nobody really represents me.”

J. Matthew McGlone, a moderate Republican voter from Towson, said he finds the Harris to-do list as thin as most of her answers in interviews.

“There’s some merit, but not a lot of merit,” he said. “She’s all joy, hope and future without any substance.”

McGlone thought the Biden-Harris stimulus program was “inflationary and put too much money in the system.”

“I don’t have a lot of faith in her kind of spending,” he said.

Harris and Trump are “two bad choices,” and that’s why McGlone said he voted early and wrote in Nikki Haley.

Kim Klacik, the Republican nominee to succeed the retiring U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger in the Baltimore County-based district, said she’s primarily concerned about Harris’ agenda on housing, energy costs and immigration.

A longtime Trump supporter, Klacik said she doesn’t believe Harris, or the bipartisan bill she supported that died in Congress earlier this year, are strong enough in controlling the flow of undocumented immigrants across the border.

“And it’s not because I know everything, because I don’t, but I would say because the border patrol union came out and endorsed Trump, I would think that probably tells us a lot more to the story,” said Klacik, who has traveled to the border during her campaign. “But I’m not going to pretend me going down to the Rio Grande a couple of different times makes me an expert because I’m definitely not.”

Klacik said she’s also “very concerned about her opportunity economy,” Harris’ term for her economic platform. Specifically, she said she believes giving new home buyers $25,000 for down payments, as she has proposed, could backfire.

“If they default on their loans, and God forbid that they do, but there’s a reason probably why they don’t have that $25,000, right?” Klacik said. “I think this will lead to a situation where we end up bailing out the banks once again. That’s not something, I don’t think anybody wants to see, no matter which side of the aisle they sit on.”

State House minority leader Jason Buckel said he doesn’t understand the holdup.

“My initial reaction is why hasn’t the Biden-Harris administration done any of these things, some of which are objectively positive, in the last four years, including two where they had complete Democratic control of Congress?” he said.

“Instead, they enacted policies that exacerbated inflation, strangled our energy independence, and seemingly focused on far-left policies that divided Americans rather than unified them,” he said.

Asked to respond to Harris’ to-do list, Maryland Republican Party Chairwoman Nicole Beus Harris emailed a succinct sentence: “Why didn’t she do that in the last 3.5 years?”

Reporters Jeff Barker and Sam Janesch contributed to this report. Got a news tip? Politics editor Candy Woodall can be reached at cwoodall@baltsun.com, 443-571-1113 and on X as @candynotcandace.

Kamala Harris’ to-do list:

Cut taxes for more than 100 million Americans;
Strengthen Medicare and protect Social Security;
Work with private sector to build 3 million new homes to increase housing supply and bring down costs;
Pass the bipartisan border security bill to strengthen and secure our border;
Restore reproductive freedom;
Legalize recreational marijuana;
Cap the cost of insulin at $35 per month and prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year for all Americans;
Expand Medicare to cover home care for seniors and people with disabilities;
Protect and strengthen the Affordable Care Act;
Promote common sense gun safety laws to protect Americans from gun violence;
Invest in American manufacturing and clean energy;
Expand the startup tax deduction for small businesses by 10x to $50,000;
Give families a $6,000 tax credit during the first year of their child’s life;
And pass the first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries.