RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris promotes a wide range of economic proposals It is intended to provide new tax relief and reduce the cost of living for Americans and aims to address the financial concerns of voters that Republican Donald Trump wants to push to their doorsteps.
Harris will outline her plans on Friday in the swing state of North Carolina, including a proposal for a federal ban on price gouging on food. She also proposes a $25,000 down payment for certain first-time home buyers and tax breaks for home construction, among other measures.
Harris is calling for tax relief for families and middle- and low-income earners. She would increase the child tax credit to up to $3,600 – and to $6,000 for children in their first year. Harris would expand the earned income tax credit to people in low-income jobs without children, which the campaign estimates would reduce their effective tax burden by $1,500.
Harris also wants to reduce health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.
Many of the changes would require approval from Congress, which is far from a given in the current political environment.
Harris tries to numb Trump’s attacks on them as a “radical Californian liberal who ruined the economy,” as he put it during a speech on Thursday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he displayed popular grocery items to represent high food prices.
Inflation year-on-year has hit 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 July’s inflation came from higher rents and other housing costs, a trend that is moderating, according to real-time data. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, contributing to lower inflation.
Harris’ grocery pricing proposal would direct the Federal Trade Commission to punish “big corporations” that increase prices and cite a lack of competition in the meatpacking industry as a reason for the rise in meat prices.
Polls show that Americans trust Trump more than Harris on the economic situation: About 45 percent say Trump is better able to manage the economy, while 38 percent say the same about Harris. About 1 in 10 trust neither Harris nor Trump to manage the economy better, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Ride Revival of enthusiasm since Restart of the Democratic election campaignHarris has launched a blitz on battleground states in recent weeks that has increased the number of races strategists see as contested. In North Carolina, Democrats are cautiously navigating the new energy in an economically dynamic state that hasn’t been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.
North Carolina has been a popular destination for Biden and Harris’ visits this year. After Biden’s disastrous performance at the debate against Trump in June, Raleigh was the first city where he held a rally to re-mobilize Democratic voters. Harris also made two stops in North Carolina – in Greensboro and Fayetteville – in the weeks before Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.
“In North Carolina, we were starting from a situation where Joe Biden was almost certain to lose, while Kamala Harris had a very real chance of winning,” said Steven Greene, a professor of political science at North Carolina State University.
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Dan Kanninen, head of swing states for the Harris campaign, said North Carolina “has the same chance as any other state to be the tipping point, which is why we have invested heavily in this state from the beginning.”
Harris is trying to strike a balance between defining her own image and her economic agenda, without ignoring the Biden administration’s track record.
Biden was asked Thursday whether he thought Harris would distance herself from his economic record. “She won’t,” he said.
In their first joint speech since Biden’s departure, he and Harris were in Maryland on Thursday, where they presented successful negotiations to lower prices for Medicare recipients. 10 prescription drugsThis change in policy was made possible by a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, a comprehensive law that focuses largely on climate and health policy.
During the event, Harris praised Biden and said “few politicians in our country have done more” to make health care affordable. The president criticized big pharmaceutical companies, arguing that Trump is “fighting to get rid of what we just passed.”
Biden repeated some of the measures proposed by Harris and touted his economic legacy.
“I have no problem with corporations making money, but I have no problem with price gouging,” Biden said. “I thank God that in the last three months of my term as President of the United States, I have finally been able to accomplish what I tried to do as a young Senator.”
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Brown reported from Washington.
