Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off her campaign speech in North Carolina on Friday announcing her new economic plan that would give about $1.7 trillion in handouts to those struggling in the current Biden-Harris economy and set price controls on groceries, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Her economic plan includes measures to dole out $25,000 to help first-time home owners with their down payments and give up to a $6,000 tax breaks for lower and middle income families who have a child in their first year of life. Harris did not say what incomes qualify as “lower” and “middle.”
The housing subsidies alone are “absolutely inflationary” and would “push a $2 trillion dollar deficit even higher,” Brian Riedl, a senior economic fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Post, while making up just $200 billion of the total handouts pledged to voters.
The proposal is the first time Harris has laid out a large policy plan since taking over for President Biden on the 2024 ticket, and has her critics saying it’s far more left than the president ever was.
“The middle class is one of America’s greatest strengths, and to protect it, then we must defend basic principles, such as, your salary should be enough to provide you and your family with a good quality of life,” Harris said in her speech.
Harris blamed the high grocery prices on the supply chain disruption during the pandemic, and said that while they have gotten better, prices have remained high – saying that’s why federal price limits are needed for the first time in US history.
Here’s what you need to know about Kamala Harris’ plans for the economy
- Harris plans to reduce grocery costs, which includes working with Congress to ban “price gouging,” or stopping sellers from pricing their products excessively.
- Harris promised to work toward construction of three million new homes to “end the housing shortage” within a four-year time frame, offering a first-ever tax incentive to people building starter homes.
- The Harris campaign is running on expanding the Child Tax Credit to give middle-income and lower-income families up to $6,000 in tax breaks for families who have children in their first year of life.
- Harris wants to “to cancel medical debt for millions of Americans and to help them avoid accumulating such debt in the future,” capping insulin costs at $35 and out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000.
“We know that many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives, costs are still too high, and on a deeper level, for too many people, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead,” Harris said in Raleigh at her campaign stop.
“As President, I will be laser focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity. Together, we will build what I call an opportunity economy.”
The Trump campaign has especially taken issue with her price control policies, calling them “communist” and comparing her proposals to those of authoritarian leaders in Venezuela and Cuba.
“When the government comes in and takes over food production and sets prices, that inevitably leads to food shortages and even famines,” economist Kevin Hassett said in a Trump campaign press call.
Economist Stephen Moore added in the call that “the average margin for a grocery store or 711 sell food is between two and three percentage points,” predicting that “many of them will go out of business” with price controls.
Riedl agreed, telling The Post that “price controls do not eliminate inflation — they only delay it, with huge shortages in the meantime.”
The Trump campaign has stressed that Harris is currently in office as vice president and has presided over the economy for the last three and a half years.
Harris argued that Trump did not offer concrete policy proposals in his speech on the economy that he did on Thursday.
In his speech standing in front of groceries, Trump blamed Harris for the current economy and said he would “drill baby drill” when he got back into office, lowering the price of energy.
He also said he would free up federal land to build more houses on and work to reduce the price of energy by 50%.
Harris is proposing giving tax incentives to businesses who build affordable housing and to those Americans building houses themselves and is planning to build $3 million more homes in the next four years.
The plan is estimated to cost $1.7 trillion over the next decade, according to the The estimated cost does not include the grocery price control and mostly comes from her increase on the Child Tax Credit.
