At first glance, Vice President Kamala Harris has little in common with Eva Perón, the controversial first lady of Argentina popularly known as “Evita.” But a closer look reveals one alarming similarity.

Over 70 years ago, Evita and her husband, Argentina’s president Juan Perón held power by showering their fellow citizens with benefits and tanking the economy. The Peróns threw (figurative) candy off the palace balcony to the masses below, while distracting them from the consequences of irresponsible fiscal policy.

Last year, inflation in Argentina was at 140%. Poverty was at 40%. Half the country was receiving some kind of public payment. After seven decades of Peronism, the Argentines had finally had enough. They elected economist Javier Milei on a promise to shrink government, privatize state companies, and liberalize trade.

Here in los Estados Unidos, we seem not to have taken this lesson to heart.

President Biden used COVID as an excuse to give us the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act—which, despite the names, poured printed trillions into the money supply. This, economists tell us, is the basic cause of inflation. More money chasing the same amount of stuff means higher prices.

Then there was the student loan giveaway, where hundreds of billions in borrowers’ liability, regardless of the quality of their degree or ability to pay, were transferred to you and me. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, but the administration continued regardless.

There was also a pension bailout. Biden used $36 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out 350,000 participants in underfunded private plans. But what the White House called “helping to ensure a dignified retirement for all American workers” means all the other taxpayers bailing out badly-managed union funds. Nationalizing private losses creates more moral hazard, as feckless managers face no consequences for failure.

When it comes to immigration, Biden has doled out candy like no other president before him—a policy that Harris, his “border czar,” shows every sign of continuing if she succeeds him.

There’s been billions in FEMA grants given to charities that relocate inadmissible aliens throughout the country, and to the Biden-supporting cities and states that house them for “free.”

There’s Temporary Protected Status, where the government “temporarily” declares a given country’s illegal aliens off limits for enforcement. This lasts 18 months, but then is renewed over and over. Some countries’ nationals have had TPS for decades.

Then there’s Biden’s bogus immigration parole-a-palooza programs that cover whole countries and millions of inadmissible or illegal aliens. The latest is “parole in place,” which could apply to a million or more illegal aliens married to U.S. citizens. Like other Biden “lawful pathways” around immigration limits set by Congress, this one is wide open to fraud.

There’s Deferred Enforced Departure for illegally present Palestinians (and others), which means although a foreign national has had all due process, the Biden-Harris administration just decides not to enforce judgement.

The administration is also considering expanding the Cancellation of Removal program to people who have lived in the U.S. for over 10 years and have citizen relatives who would “suffer hardship” if they were deported. They’re unlikely to set the hardship bar too high.

There’s taxpayer subsidized Medicaid and Obamacare for DACA (Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” program). To achieve this, Biden’s proposed rule considers DACA beneficiaries “lawfully present” for the purposes of health benefits, though the justification for the “deferred action” against them is that they are unlawfully present. It’s pretzel logic.

The emerging Harris agenda builds off the Biden years by bringing a bigger bag of candy to the balcony and throwing it off even faster. She wants to:

• Give illegal aliens an “earned pathway to citizenship” (amnesty);
• “eliminate” medical debt (by transferring it to the rest of us);
• give first-time house buyers $25,000 and $40 billion in subsidies tax credits for builders;
• give parents a $6,000 “tax credit” (even if they pay no tax);
• ban “price-gouging” for groceries, and
• cap prescription drug costs.

The last two ideas are known as “price controls.” Reason magazine calls them “dishonest and stupid.” Or as Federal Reserve economist Chris Neely more politely writes, an “analysis of history show that broad price controls would be costly and of limited effectiveness.”

Harris says she will do all this while “reducing the deficit and strengthening our fiscal health.” You see, she will throw all the candy out of the basket, but the basket magically refills. It’s the miracle of the loaves and fishes, with faith not in God but Big Government.

Tax expert Daniel Hemel thinks Harris has “made the correct calculus that sacrificing on fiscal policy for a few hundred thousand middle-class voters in the battleground states is worth it.”

Maybe so. And who wants to be the politician running against Evita and the free candy? What’s certain is that, though the candy continues to rain on our heads, it is never free.