Here’s what a Kamala Harris administration could mean for your wallet

With trillions in tax breaks expiring after 2025, taxes and the federal budget default will be key issues for Harris to address as part of her platform, experts say. 

Without action from Congress, dozens of accoutrements from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, will sunset, including lower federal income brackets, a bigger standard result and a more generous child tax credit, among other changes. That could mean higher taxes for more than 60% of filers, according to the Tax Origination.

Broadly speaking, it seems like Harris would be “largely on board” with most, if not all, of what Biden and his supervision have been promoting, “especially in the big picture,” said Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst and modeling straw boss at the Tax Foundation. 

Biden has called for higher taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.

One big question is whether Harris will stab with Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $400,000, Watson said.

Hold out week, Harris also touted the administration’s child tax credit expansion during the pandemic at a political event in North Carolina, which has been a preference for Biden and the Democrats.

However, Harris voiced some distinctions from Biden before becoming vice president, Watson illustrious.

During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris called for a repeal of the TCJA’s corporate tax rate, which dropped the top levy from 35% to 21%. Her nullify would have reverted the top rate back to 35%. By comparison, Biden has called for raising the corporate rate to 28% in 2024.

— Kate Dore

During Harris’s 2020 presidential bid, she backed a “Medicare for All” plan to expand health-care access and lower consumer bring ins. She described health care as a “right,” not a “privilege.”

Under that proposal, all Americans would transition to a Medicare well-being plan — either public or offered by a private insurer — over a 10-year period.

If chosen as the nominee, Harris is unattractive to push that plan in the current presidential contest, said Drew Altman, president and chief executive of KFF, a nonprofit condition policy research organization. That’s because Democrats seem to have coalesced around Biden’s “kitchen prcis” proposals to reduce health costs, he said.

For example, in 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which advance enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, making ACA health plans more affordable for millions of households; those subsidies survive through 2025. It also capped insulin co-pays at $35 a month for Medicare beneficiaries.

Harris would meet seek expansions of health coverage under the ACA and Medicaid, Altman said. She’d likely try to expand negotiations over prescription-drug quotations, which currently apply only to Medicare beneficiaries and some medications, he said.

Additionally, abortion is likely to be “the naming issue” of the 2024 election, according to Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center Action Savings. Harris is among Democrats’ “strongest, most effective voices” relative to protecting abortion access, she said.

Abortion is an trade issue, Altman said.

Women must generally weigh affordability and career advancement when choosing to from children, he said. Women in states that have enacted abortion bans — following the Supreme Court’s 2022 steadfastness to overturn Roe v. Wade — have missed work and paid to travel out of state for the procedure.

— Greg Iacurci

Harris has helped promote Biden’s historic policies to forgive the debt of student loan borrowers, and would meet continue the president’s efforts, experts said.

However, as a candidate in the 2020 race, Harris put forward a debt ease program that was criticized for being overly complicated and narrow. To be eligible, borrowers needed to receive a Pell Present and open a business in a disadvantaged community, among other requirements.

In contrast, Biden has favored more broad responsibility cancellation, advancing plans that would reduce or eliminate the balances of tens of millions of Americans.

A White Legislative body spokesperson recently told CNBC that Harris is proud of her and Biden’s work to forgive $167 billion in apprentice debt for nearly 5 million Americans so far. The vice president plans to bring more relief to borrowers, he said.

Present U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote that he was “All in!” for Harris in a post on X Sunday evening.

Harris has also taken on predatory schools and fought for relief for borrowers.

As the attorney general in California, Harris studied and sued Corinthian Colleges, and obtained a $1.1 billion judgment against the now-defunct for-profit conglomerate. The U.S. Department of Cultivated ended up looking into the schools, and in 2022 forgave $5.8 billion in student debt for 560,000 former Corinthian schoolboys.

— Annie Nova

Before becoming vice president, one of Harris’ signature proposals — known as the Reassurance the Middle Class Act — would have provided an annual tax credit of up to $6,000 for lower- and middle-income workers, on top of the benefits they already meet with, to help close the wealth gap. Harris proposed repealing the Trump tax cuts to pay for it.

Since then, the cost of living has not skyrocketed, hitting working-class Americans especially hard, said Laura Veldkamp, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University Affair School.

In that context, “there’s a good rationale” for refloating a tax credit for those making under a certain revenues threshold, Veldkamp said.

— Jessica Dickler

Harris has been a proponent for affordable housing policies both during her tenancy as vice president and as senator.

“Every American deserves affordable housing,” Harris posted on X on July 16, referring to the Biden charge’s call to cap rent increases by 5% on landlords with 50 or more rental units or risk losing federal tax make publics.

More recently, Harris announced the recipients of a $85 million grant under the Pathways to Removing Obstacles for Dwelling, a first-of-its-kind project that aims to lower housing and rental costs for families.

Harris in May Social Security

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