Vice President Kamala Harris spoke yesterday at the Economic Club in Pittsburgh, PA, on the Harris-Walz economic plan for an "opportunity economy." The Guardian provides a summary of her address, which we're further condensing:
Millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, Kamala Harris has said, as the Democratic presidential candidate fleshed out the economic agenda she hopes to adopt in the White House.
Conceding that the cost of living in America “is still just too high”, the vice-president argued this was true “long before” the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the global economy, and she took office with the president, Joe Biden.
Harris pledged to put the middle class at the heart of the US economy – and claimed Donald Trump was only interested in helping “himself, and people like himself” if he regains the presidency. [snip]
In her speech on Wednesday, Harris touted her proposals to enact a $6,000 tax credit for families during the first year of a child’s life; introduce a $3,600 tax credit per child for working families; and refrain from increasing taxes on households with less than $400,000 of annual income.
She also cited previously announced economic proposals from her campaign including a $25,000 tax credit and other incentives for first-time home buyers, expanding a small business creation tax break, taxing long term capital gains for wealthy individuals at 28%, universal childcare and paid family leave, and enacting a federal ban on corporate price gouging.
Harris tried to contrast such plans with Trump’s policy platform, which includes plans to cut corporate tax rates and impose tariffs to protect US companies from foreign competition.
“I intend to chart a new way forward and grow America’s middle class,” Harris said. “Donald Trump intends to take America backward to the failed policies of the past. He has no intention to grow our middle class. He’s only interested in making life better for himself and people like himself, the wealthiest of Americans. You can see it spelled out in his economic agenda.
“I call my vision the opportunity economy, and it’s about making sure everyone can find a job and more. Because, frankly, having a job should be baseline, and we should aspire and have the ambition and plan to do more. I want Americans and families to be able to not just get by, but be able to get ahead, to thrive.”
Harris cited a goal to achieve 25 million new small business applications in the US by the end of her first presidential term, and a goal to double the number of registered apprenticeships by the end of her first term. “At the same time that Donald Trump was giving a tax cut to big corporations and billionaires, he tried to slash programs for small businesses and raise borrowing costs for them,” she said. “Instead of making it easier, he actually made it more difficult for them to access capital.”
She also asserted support to ensure the US leads in future industries rather than China, arguing building infrastructure – from housing to factories – takes too long.“We will invest in bio-manufacturing and aerospace; remain dominant in AI and quantum computing, blockchain and other emerging technologies; expand our lead in clean energy innovation and manufacturing. No one who grows up in America’s greatest industrial or agricultural centers should be abandoned.”... (our emphasis)
A campaign fact sheet outlining the plan is here. If you want the complete 82- page plan, "A New Way Forward For the Middle Class," it can be found here (pdf). That should cover things as far as detail and transparency, though we await whining and nit-picking from some quarters in the media.
Here's her speech in case you missed it:
A key quote from the speech wasn't noted in The Guardian's piece:
“My opponent, Donald Trump, makes big promises on manufacturing,” she said. “On Trump’s watch, offshoring went up and manufacturing jobs went down across our country. ... He constantly got played by China.”
That should prompt a furious ALL CAPS, no truth screed on Trump's crashing social media platform!
