Vice President Kamala Harris is set to unveil her populist economic agenda at a campaign event in North Carolina on Friday.
This highly anticipated plan is Harris’ first-ever detailed vision of her economic policies and includes proposals that prioritize “lowering costs for American families,” going beyond President Joe Biden's campaign platform, The Washington Post reported.
Although not always economical, according to some experts, Democrats have increasingly turned to populist economics as the key to winning the election in November. Numerous polls have indicated that concerns regarding the economy and inflation rank as top issues among voters. Polling also shows that striking corporate price gouging is favorable.
Harris’ proposal includes eliminating medical debt for millions of Americans; the “first-ever” ban on corporate price gouging for food and groceries; a cap on prescription drug costs; a child tax credit that provides $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby’s life; and a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers — extending Biden’s subsidy for first-generation home buyers.
The Democratic candidate’s economic policy position comes mere days before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Harris has largely been surrounded by former aides to Biden and her announcement Friday, contrary to the centrist approach business leaders probably hoped for, seems to heavily build on Biden’s push for aggressive government intervention in the economy on industrial, labor, and antitrust policies.
“Harris has made a set of policy choices over the last several weeks that make it clear that the Democratic Party is committed to a pro-working-family agenda. The days of ‘What’s good for free enterprise is good for America’ are over,” Felicia Wong, president of a left-leaning think tank called Roosevelt Forward, told the Post.
Two outside advisers familiar with the matter told the Post that in the weeks leading up to her announcement, the vice president’s campaign was also considering some more centrist policies such as backing income tax cuts for middle-class households or a tax break for small businesses. Although these were not included in her final policy package, they may be released later.
Some of Harris’ plans were less clear and remained ambiguous, like the allusion to cutting “red tape” and lowering the deficit. Some economic experts found some of the vice president’s ideas unrealistic and detrimental to the U.S. economy in the long run.
For example, senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget Marc Goldwein claimed that Harris’ call for an additional $6,000 credit for newborns would most likely cost an additional $100 billion over a decade. That is on top of the $1.1 trillion over 10 years estimated cost of her restoring Biden's original tax credit that provides $3,000 for most children. Policy experts also criticized Harris’ promise not to raise taxes on Americans earning under $400,000 per year.
A spokesperson for the campaign told Salon that any additional costs above the Biden administration's proposed budget would be offset by increased taxes on corporations and high earners.
Harris’ price gouging proposal is another example of a semi-baked plan according to experts. While grocery prices — which have increased 26% since 2019 — have risen as a top concern for voters, it is also true that mandatory price setting creates shortages as firms lose incentive to produce supplies. On the other hand, Biden’s aides contest that government intervention is needed to rebalance the scale on behalf of consumers.
“Vice President Harris faces a dilemma: On the one hand, America is on a fiscally unsustainable path, and if we’re going to embark on some of the more ambitious programs she’d like to pursue we need more revenue,” Daniel Hemel, a tax policy expert at the New York University School of Law, told the Post.
“On the other hand," he added, "democracy is in peril, and that crisis feels — and is — more imminent than the fiscal crisis, and I think she’s made the correct calculus that sacrificing on fiscal policy for a few hundred thousand middle-class voters in the battleground states is worth it."
