Economic illiteracy could be the big winner in Tuesday’s off year elections, especially in New York and New Jersey. I hope not. But you have rent freezes from socialist Zohran Mamdani and a freeze on utilities by New Jersey’s Miki Sherril.

Of course, economic illiteracy for Mr. Mamdani comes way too easily.

He wants to give everything away for free. My favorite is his Soviet-style supermarkets.

If you can find anybody who lived through any of the 70 years of Soviet communism, please ask them how well the shelves were stocked with fresh food during the communist period.

It was a disaster. 

And of course, adding up Mr. Mamdani’s free spending ways, and you get a number that’s almost equal to the current New York City budget. And much bigger than the budget of the New York police department.

His proposed rent freeze which covers roughly half of renters simply means that the apartments will spiral down into total disrepair because owners won’t make any money or even break even.

They will lose their investment. Price controls of any kind never work. Ever.

Tell that to New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherril who’s very proud of her utility cost freeze.

Of course she doesn’t understand it because she’s a big greeny.

Here’s the point, though. You freeze utility rates then the electric utility companies in New Jersey will never be able to upgrade services or install the latest technologies or wait for it… wait for it… how about putting in pipelines to bring in low cost affordable natural gas or even building some of these new modular nuclear plants. Phew.

That’s the solution. Not a freeze.

The trouble is during Governor Phil Murphy’s days, he was interested in offshore windmills. And what he got was onshore dead whales. How very clever of him. 

And I count him as a personal friend, and I also recall that he was a big capitalist as a senior partner at Goldman Sachs. Yet when he put on that Governor’s crown of thorns, he just went way left socialist green new deal.

And the voters of New Jersey are apparently furious at skyrocketing utility rates.

To be sure, the utility companies in New Jersey are owned by investors and by union pension funds. So a rate freeze would harm them too.

The long and the short is economic illiteracy is alive and well in the Democratic Party. But you already knew that.

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.