Harris aims to blunt Trump’s economic attacks by proposing new tax breaks in a bid to lower costs
RALEIGH, NC — RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris promotes a wide range of economic proposals that would provide new tax breaks and lower the cost of living for Americans, aiming to address the financial concerns that are most on voters’ minds and that Republican Donald Trump is trying to foist on them.
Harris will be in North Carolina on Friday to outline her plans, which include a proposal for a federal ban on overpricing for groceries. She is also proposing $25,000 in down payment assistance for certain first-time homebuyers and tax breaks for starter home builders, among other things.
Harris advocates tax breaks for families, as well as for people with middle and low incomes. She would expand the child tax credit to $3,600 — and $6,000 for children in their first year of life. Harris would expand the earned income tax credit to cover people in lower-wage jobs without children, which the campaign says would reduce their effective tax rate by $1,500.
Harris also wants to lower health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.
Many of the changes require congressional approval, which is far from a given in the current political climate.
Harris tries to cover it up Trump’s attacks on her as “a radical California liberal who destroyed the economy,” as he put it during a speech on Thursday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he displayed popular supermarket products intended to illustrate the high cost of food.
Year-on-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are still 21% higher than they were three years ago. A Labor Department report this week showed that nearly all of the inflation in July reflected higher rents and other housing costs, a trend that is slowing, according to real-time data. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, helping to keep inflation down.
Harris’s food price proposal would direct the Federal Trade Commission to penalize “big companies” that raise prices, citing the lack of competition in the meatpacking industry that drives up meat prices.
Polls show that Americans are more likely to trust Trump than Harris when it comes to handling the economy: About 45% say Trump is better positioned to manage the economy, while 38% say the same of Harris. About 1 in 10 trust neither Harris nor Trump to better manage the economy, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Riding on a revival of enthusiasm since the Democrats’ Campaign RestartHarris has embarked on a battleground state blitz in recent weeks that has expanded the number of races strategists consider competitive. In North Carolina, Democrats are navigating with renewed energy and caution an economically dynamic state that hasn’t been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.
North Carolina was a hot spot for visits from Biden and Harris this year. After Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June, Raleigh was the first city where he held a rally in an effort to energize Democratic voters. Harris also made two stops in North Carolina — in Greensboro and Fayetteville — in the weeks leading up to Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.
“With North Carolina, we went from a situation where Joe Biden was almost certain to lose here to Kamala Harris having a very real chance of winning,” said Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University.
Dan Kanninen, Harris’ campaign director for battleground states, said North Carolina is “as likely as any state to hit the tipping point, so we’ve invested heavily in it from the beginning.”
Harris is trying to strike a balance between defining her own image and economic agenda while also recognizing the Biden administration’s track record.
Biden was asked Thursday if he thought Harris would back down from his economic record. “She’s not going to do that,” he said.
In their first joint speaking engagement since Biden withdrew, he and Harris were in Maryland on Thursday, where they showcased successful negotiations to lower prices for Medicare recipients. 10 Prescription DrugsThe shift was made possible by a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping law that focused largely on climate and health care policies.
At the event, Harris praised Biden, saying that “few leaders in our country have done more” to make health care affordable. The president criticized big pharmaceutical companies and argued that Trump is “fighting to get rid of what we just passed.”
Biden discussed some of Harris’ proposed policies while outlining his economic legacy.
“I have no problem with corporations making money, but I don’t have a problem with profiteering,” Biden said. “I thank God that in the last three months that I’ve been president of the United States, I’ve finally been able to do what I tried to do when I was a young senator.”
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Brown reported from Washington.