Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to the swing state of North Carolina on Friday to deliver her first policy speech as the Democratic presidential candidate, promising to create an “opportunity economy” by building the middle class.
The vice president said that “America is strong” when the economy is strong and laid out a series of policy proposals she would implement in her first 100 days in office if elected president.
But she ultimately made a mistake in announcing her ban on price gouging, mispronouncing it as “price gouging.”
During her speech, Harris praised a number of policies implemented under the Biden administration and promised to continue, while drawing a sharp contrast with her political opponent Donald Trump.
The vice president claimed the proposals would provide relief to millions of families while reducing the federal budget deficit, but he did not go into specifics about how it would be paid for.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that its slate of expanded tax credits, subsidies and homebuyer aid would increase the deficit by $1.7 trillion over a decade. But the campaign argued that any additional costs beyond the Biden-Harris fiscal 2025 budget would be offset by higher taxes on corporations and high-income earners.
Kamala Harris traveled to Raleigh, NC to deliver her first policy speech as the Democratic presidential candidate, focusing on the economy on August 16, 2024
Among the policies unveiled Friday was a $6,000 tax credit for newborns. Harris also wants to see the Child Tax Credit restored to the level it was in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan.
“Think about what that means, that it’s a very important year in a child’s critical development,” Harris said of the new tax credit for children in their first year of life.
On housing, the vice president called for three million new homes in her first four years in office, one million more than under President Biden.
She also wants to encourage companies to build starter homes and is urging Congress to pass laws that would ban large corporations from buying up homes and raising rents.
Harris also called for a $25,000 down payment for first-time homebuyers, an expansion of a proposal under the Biden administration to provide assistance to first-generation homebuyers.
The vice president drew on her own experiences to tell the story of her parents renting while she was growing up and her mother’s excitement when she was finally able to buy a home when Harris was a teenager.
On prescription drug prices, the vice president called for raising the maximum co-pay for prescription drugs to $2,000, not just for seniors, but for everyone.
She also called for expediting negotiations on prescription drug prices within Medicare and greater transparency in the industry.
Earlier this week, Vice President Harris’ campaign unveiled a plan to ban federal price gouging. It’s a controversial policy that has drawn opposition from some economists who warned that such a policy would do little to lower food costs.
Economist Jason Furman, who served in the Obama administration, told the Washington Post that this could lead to “bigger shortages, less supply and ultimately higher prices and worse outcomes for consumers” if it is actually enforced.
During her remarks, Harris said food prices remain too high. She argued that as president she would “go after the bad guys” and claimed that competition is “the lifeblood of our economy.”
But when she wanted to announce the anti-gauging measure, the vice president mispronounced the word “woeging” instead of “gauging.”
“My plan includes new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules. We will also support smaller food companies that try to play by the rules and make progress,” she said.
Kamala Harris greets Durham County Commissioner as she arrives in Raleigh for her economic speech on August 16, 2024
In her speech Friday, the vice president outlined for the first time what her own priorities are within the administration and what sets her apart from the president since Biden withdrew from the presidential race last month.
Harris praised some of the policies implemented during the Biden administration, saying the U.S. economy has come a long way since the president took office during the coronavirus pandemic with record job creation. But she acknowledged that prices are still too high.
The vice president delivered her speech at the Hendrick Center for Automotive Excellence at Wake Tech, a community college in Raleigh, North Carolina. The vice president’s visit to the state in question is her eighth stop this year.
She was scheduled to return to Raleigh last week for a rally with her running mate Tim Walz, but the event was postponed due to a storm moving through the South.
Among those in attendance for Harris’ speech was Deborah Collier, a Black small business owner and Harris supporter who owns several McDonald’s restaurants in Raleigh.
“The most important thing to me is that they will be advocates for small businesses because we are the backbone of the country. We recruit and keep the economy going using all the different supplies and vendors that we use,” she said.
“The last two terms with (North Carolina Governor) Roy Cooper, I’ve seen what it’s like to have someone in office who is willing to bridge the divide. I hope she will do the same so we can get things done,” she added.
Both Cooper, a Democrat, and Democratic candidate for governor Josh Stein attended her speech, as the crowd occasionally chanted “we’re not going back” and “a new way forward.”
Harris’ visit to the state comes just days after former President Donald Trump visited Asheville, North Carolina, to deliver his own speech, which he billed as an economic address.
Harris accused him of having “no serious plans” and accused him of wanting a national sales tax on necessities, referring to his tariff proposal.
She also accused the former president of wanting to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Former President Donald Trump speaks in Asheville, NC on August 14, 2024. The Republican presidential candidate accuses Harris of copying his proposal to end the tax on tips for service workers, which he introduced earlier this year in Nevada. Last week, Harris supported ending the tip tax at a rally in Las Vegas
Ahead of her remarks, Republicans criticized the vice president for her economic agenda during a call with reporters, accusing her of copying Trump’s proposals and criticizing other priorities, saying they made “no sense.”
Republicans point to the inflation rates under the Trump administration compared to the Biden administration, blaming the high prices on the current administration’s policies rather than supply chain challenges and shortages caused by the coronavirus pandemic.