Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has the vibes and the momentum—and now she has an economic plan to lift America to the next level.
According to a morning statement from her campaign, the plan includes a middle-class tax cut, a policy to further lower the price of prescription drugs, and another to relieve the medical debt burdening so many families. But the most exciting parts may be how the plan would tackle affordable housing, the financial distress faced by many new parents, and one of the engines of inflation—corporate greed.
Harris is expected to talk about her plan at a Friday afternoon campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina. But in advance of that speech, let’s dive into the campaign’s statement, which highlights her policies. Here are just a few that will make an amazing difference.
Helping first-time homebuyers
A major reason that home prices have risen so quickly is simple supply and demand: More people need homes than there are homes available. Harris’ plan calls for working with the construction industry and local government to remove barriers and provide incentives for building 3 million new homes for rent or purchase. This shouldn’t just cool the overheated market for homes, it should also drive down the cost of renting.
Even in areas where homes are available, they are often expensive “McMansions” stamped out by a construction and real estate market that then gets to take home a bigger profit from those large, expensive homes. Harris’ plan would provide an all-new incentive for building smaller homes that would be more affordable for first-time buyers.
On top of encouraging the construction of starter homes, the plan would also provide an average of $25,000 for first-time buyers as down-payment assistance, “while ensuring full participation by first-generation home buyers,” the statement says, aiming to address historic inequities in the real estate market.
Aiding renters
Tax incentives to build affordable rental housing already exist, but they’re not doing enough to keep the rental market competitive and to provide a place to live for working-class Americans. Harris would expand on these credits, easing the pressure on the rental market.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers continue to work from home, leading to empty or underutilized office buildings in many cities. That’s just one example of a situation where industry and local government might unite to create new housing units in an existing space. Harris’ plan includes an incentive to design and build rental solutions in new, innovative ways, such as by making some federal lands available to developers who can prove that their new ideas will deliver results.
A portion of the plan is also devoted to knocking out perverse incentives in the current system that exacerbate housing problems. Investment firms are snapping up both individual homes and rental units, creating local monopolies that distort the housing market. In other areas, rent-setting companies act like middlemen in a price-fixing scheme, dramatically raising the price of rental units and blocking competition. Harris’ plan would eliminate these real estate cartels.
Taking aim at greedflation
Lowering grocery costs is a central aim of the plan, and Harris goes directly at an area that President Joe Biden has discussed many times: pricing practices by businesses that have given them record profits while shoppers were stuck with soaring prices.
Around 2022, many companies took advantage of rising inflation to jack up prices far more than was required to cover increased costs, largely fueling the sticker shock that grocery shoppers faced.
Harris has made going after those bad actors a top priority in her first 100 days. That includes:
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Proposing a federal ban on price-gouging on food and groceries.
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Implementing rules to stop corporations from exploiting consumers by running up excessive profits on food and groceries.
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Providing new authority to the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to investigate and strictly penalize companies that break those rules.
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Breaking up monopolies that drive up prices, while also promoting smaller businesses—such as grocery stores, meat processors, and farmers, among others—to improve competition.
Real help for parents—and for those who aren’t parents
Republicans may talk big about the importance of having children, but their party is notoriously against programs that help feed, clothe, educate, and protect children after they are born. Harris’ economic plan would expand the child tax credit, providing up to $3,600 per child for most families and up to $6,000 for children in the first year of life—when they and their families most need help.
A similar expansion of this tax credit was included in the Biden-Harris administration’s 2021 economic stimulus, the American Rescue Plan, and the credits helped cut the child poverty rate nearly in half, pushing it to a historic low. After Senate Republicans led the drive not to renew that expansion, the expanded credit lapsed and the child poverty rate more than doubled.
Those credits worked then. They’ll work again.
But Harris’ plan doesn’t cut out people who don’t have children. It includes an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit to cover individuals and couples in lower-income jobs without a dependent child in their household, as well as additional assistance in getting health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
This is a fraction of what’s covered in Harris’ economic plan. None of these things are pipe dreams. None of them are vague, pie-in-the-sky pronouncements. And absolutely none of them would give more wealth to the wealthy under the cover of somehow helping everyone else.
Harris has the vibes. She has the momentum. She has a plan. And it’s a good one.
