Pandering to voters is a time-honored tradition in American politics, but Vice President Kamala Harris took it to new levels with her surprising promise to seek to end federal income taxes on tips.

Where have we heard that one before? Oh, yes, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — you know, the guy Harris and fellow Democrats believe is an existential threat to the future of American democracy and whom they repeatedly lampoon as addled and at times incomprehensible — has made ending taxes on income earned from tips a centerpiece of his campaign. He’s so focused on that particular proposal that often it’s the only specific policy featured on many of his billboards; that’s been the case for two months now.

It was no accident, of course, that Harris was campaigning at a Nevada rally when she thundered her support for making tipped income tax-free. Nevada is home to an unusually large number of workers dependent on gratuities, given the centrality of the entertainment and hospitality industries to its economy.

Nevada also is a tightly contested purple state that Joe Biden won narrowly over Trump in 2020 and where Trump has led in polls for much of 2024. Trump has said he came up with the idea after talking to a Nevada waitress about her financial troubles.

Trump was the only candidate pushing this foolhardy policy, which a federal government in hock up to its eyeballs can’t afford and which would create a nightmare of employers and employees claiming that income previously classified as salaried suddenly now is a gratuity.

We’re no less critical of Harris now that she apparently has decided Trump was right about something after all. Maybe more so given that Democrats have tried with varying levels of success to position themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility while the GOP proffers deficit-financed tax cuts in election cycle after election cycle. Naturally, she gave Trump no credit or acknowledgment for the idea, prompting him to cry foul about copy-catting.

Harris’ truncated campaign, a necessity after Democrats quickly coalesced around her following President Biden’s decision weeks ago to end his wheezing reelection campaign, has made it challenging for voters not already in their partisan bunkers to determine who she is and what she stands for. She has reversed herself on several positions she held in 2019 when she unsuccessfully ran for president.

Now she’s mimicking Trump on a position that no doubt is music to the ears of servers, bartenders, barbers, baristas and other service providers across the nation. But it raises more questions than already were floating in the ether about which policies and issues are fundamental to her identity — and, conversely, which she will throw overboard for short-term political gain.

Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service

Editorial cartoon by Joe Heller (Joe Heller)