“60 Minutes” reporter Bill Whitaker had one main question for Harris. It was the wrong thing.

It is the job of journalists to examine candidates' ideas and explain to voters what they will face if each one is elected. Unfortunately, the way too many of us deal with this in the media tends to obscure rather than clarify what is important. Questions that seem persistent and probing actually distract us from what we should be asking.

Take the interview Harris did on “60 Minutes” on Monday. Correspondent Bill Whitaker listed a series of proposals Harris has made — an increase in the child tax credit, tax breaks for first-time home buyers and those starting small businesses — and then noted that a think tank had estimated that she would deficit would increase significantly. “How are you going to pay for that?” Whitaker asked. When she didn't answer the question directly, he asked it again and then expressed skepticism about the idea that she could push her plan through Congress. That's how the discussion went.

When it comes to policies like the ones Whitaker discussed or Harris' new proposal to have Medicare pay for home care for seniors, we should be asking a series of questions in the media. The first is: Why is this issue a priority? We can then ask: How would this proposal address the problem more effectively than other proposals? And once we answer these questions, we can ask: Where do we get the money from?

The first two questions allow us to think about our values, our priorities and the kind of society we want to build. Jumping straight to “How are you going to pay for this?” will avoid these problems. Focusing only on a plan's costs or, worse, its hypothetical prospects in a future Congress, too often evades these fundamental questions.

For this reason, there is nothing wrong with Harris going to the elite news media less often to discuss these ideas and spending more time both on television shows like “The View” – where she introduced the idea of ​​home care – and on popular ones Spends podcasts and radio shows. In these forums, she has the opportunity to talk about why we should do what she proposes without being interrupted by questions about a bill coming out of the Health and Human Services Subcommittee.

That could be an important question, but probably not in a presidential campaign, and before we even know who will control either house of Congress. Once a bill moves through the legislative process, there will be time to consider cost estimates and vote trading, but perhaps we should start now to ask ourselves whether or not a proposal is an important priority for the country.

This is a worthwhile debate to actually have during a presidential campaign: How problematic is the affordability of long-term care for seniors? And if the answer is that it's a huge problem (which it is), then we can ask ourselves how best to address it.

Cost can be part of this discussion, but we should remember that when it comes to government spending, we always pay for what we want – the question is whether we want something badly enough to pay for it. In this case, a recent analysis from the Brookings Institution puts the cost of something like what Harris is proposing at at least $40 billion a year.

That's a lot of money, but also far less than we spend on many other ideas, both good and bad. If there's a new issue that we think is urgent, we just do it, regardless of what it costs. We spent trillions to counteract the economic impact of the Covid pandemic because we thought it was important; That was right and helped the U.S. economy recover faster and more fully than our peer countries. We also spent trillions of dollars on an unnecessary war in Iraq, but that was a terrible idea even if it cost nothing.

Political and tax issues are important. However, the presidential election campaign is best suited to clarify fundamental questions about a country's values ​​and priorities. It's reasonable to be skeptical of Harris' home care plan because it would be a significant and expensive new program. But much will depend on its specific design and the political realities it faces, which we won't know until she is president and signs it into law. At this point, “How are you going to pay for it?” is a gotcha question, not intended to explore the idea in detail but to put you on the defensive.

Let us spend our time asking ourselves what we as a nation want for our future. We'll have plenty of time to worry about the dollars and cents later.