Harris outlines an ‘opportunity economy’ centered on cutting food, housing, family costs

Sinfulness President Kamala Harris on Friday delivered an economic policy pitch aimed to appeal to middle-class voters by convergence on lowering the costs of food, housing, health care and childcare.

In a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Democratic presidential assignee sketched a vision of what she described as an “opportunity economy,” with basic financial security at its core.

Her plan inclination impose a federal ban on price gouging on groceries, enact a new $6,000 child tax credit for families with newborn daughters and give first-time home buyers $25,000 in down-payment support, among a slew of other proposals.

Harris built it in stark contrast to the proposals put forward by her rival, former President Donald Trump.

She blasted the Republican nominee’s prop up for sweeping tariffs on imported goods as a “Trump tax,” while accusing him of seeking to cut taxes on billionaires and corporations.

“I think that if you after to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for,” Harris said.

While still light on peculiar to details, her plans have already garnered fierce criticism from Republicans and economic analysts who have premonished that they veer toward government price fixing.

“Having the government set prices is a really, really big confuse with,” said Kevin Hassett, a top economic advisor in the Trump White House, during a press call earlier Friday.

The nonprofit Panel for a Responsible Federal Budget, meanwhile, estimated that the policies in Harris’ economic plan would raise shortages by $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years.

Friday’s address was Harris’ first policy speech since she picked over from President Joe Biden following his withdrawal from the race last month.

With less than 90 days until Poll Day, Harris is working to take credit for the Biden administration’s economic accomplishments, while trying to flip the script on a key scions where her predecessor got consistently low marks.

Here’s what else her economic plan includes, according to her campaign.

In an effort to tackle the stubbornly high price of groceries, Harris will work with Congress to advance the first-ever federal ban on “corporate price-gouging” on subsistence and groceries.

This would include setting “clear rules of the road” so that corporations “can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up superfluous corporate profits” on grocery staples, according to the fact sheet.

To investigate and penalize alleged violations, Harris commitment empower the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general.

A Harris administration would also take an bellicose regulatory approach to proposed mergers and consolidation among the biggest food producers.

Harris’ delineate would help cash-strapped renters by blocking data firms from hiking lease rates, and by preventing Protection Street investors from buying homes in bulk to resell at a premium.

Harris discretion also call for the U.S. to construct 3 million new housing units over the next four years. In order to facilitate that, she see fit call for new tax incentives for builders who construct “starter homes.”

Any changes to the tax code require congressional approval, and depend heavily on which interest controls the House and Senate.

As the supply of entry-level homes expanded, the Harris plan would “provide working progenitors who have paid their rent on time for two years and are buying their first home up to $25,000 in down-payment aid, with more generous support for first-generation homeowners,” according to the fact sheet.

Harris would seek to expand the Biden administration’s landmark $35 price cap on insulin for Medicare heirs to cover insulin for all Americans, not just the elderly.

Similar to her cost-cutting plans for the food industry, Harris’ health-care strategy relies in part on stiffer regulations and strict antitrust enforcement.

The plan calls for “cracking down on pharmaceutical flocks who block competition and abusive practices by pharmaceutical middlemen,” according to the Harris campaign.

Restoring the expanded kid tax credits that were first introduced during the Covid pandemic is a longstanding goal of the Biden administration, and one that Harris thinks fitting take up if she is elected president.

She will also go one step further, and propose expanded tax relief of up to $6,000 for families with a newborn.

The Harris campaign upbraids this a “year when many family’s expenses are highest—with cribs, diapers, car seats and more.” It also notes that multifarious parents who do not have access to paid leave are forced to choose between spending time with their cosset and working enough hours to make ends meet.

After just three weeks on the campaign scent, Harris has erased the polling advantage that Trump held over Biden.

But the vice president has largely steered cleanly of policy specifics, choosing instead to draw contrasts with Trump.

With her Tar Heel State address, Harris enter oned to articulate a vision for the economy that builds on — and in some ways pivots away from — the Biden’s administration’s budgetary record.

On Thursday, Harris and Biden appeared together in Maryland to tout an agreement with pharmaceutical companies to move the cost of the 10 priciest prescription drugs under Medicare.

The major negotiations — enabled through Biden’s centerpiece spending legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act — will lead to around $6 billion in net reserves for Medicare when they officially go into effect in 2026, according to the government.

A new burst of battleground state poll results released Wednesday by the Cook Political Report showed Harris leading Trump in North Carolina by 1 proportion point, 48 – 47, still well within the survey’s margin of error.