Harris outlines her ‘pragmatic’ economic vision in pitch to middle-class voters
(PITTSBURGH) — Vice President Kamala Harris drew contrasts between her economic agenda and that of her opponent, former President Donald Trump, in a speech in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Harris told an audience at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh that her economic philosophy is “rooted in her middle-class upbringing” while Trump’s comes from a “gilded path to wealth.”
“For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors,” she said.
Harris’ remarks come as she tries to erode Trump’s edge on the economy in voters’ eyes. Polls show more voters believe Trump would do a better job with the economy. Trump often argues that Harris is responsible for the current economic climate as part of President Joe Biden’s administration. And critics say she has provided few specifics on why should be trusted to steer the economy for the next four years.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted after the ABC News presidential debate earlier this month found that the economy was the top issue for voters, with 91% saying it was an important issue for them. In that poll, voters trusted Trump to do a better job handling the economy than Harris by 7-point margin. A recent NBC News poll out Sunday found showed Trump led Harris in dealing with the economy by a 9-point spread.
Harris said she will remove barriers to economic opportunity and identify “common sense solutions to help Americans buy a home, start a business and build wealth.”
Harris has made the economy and the cost of living a focal point of her campaign in recent weeks. She has rolled out proposals to give first time homebuyers $25,000 in down payment assistance, increasing the small businesses startup tax credit tenfold to $50,000, and a $6,000 child tax credit for the first year of a newborn’s life.
The vice president said her plan would invest in strengthening the middle class, engaging in what former President Franklin D. Roosevelt called “bold, persistent experimentation.”
To allow the middle class to be the “growth engine of our economy,” Harris said she would cut taxes for middle class families and individuals, promising that more than 100 million Americans would get a middle-class tax break.
To drive down the cost of housing, Harris promised to increase the supply by cutting red tape that stops homes from being built, take on corporate landlords that she said were increasing rental prices and to work with builders and developers to construct 3 million new homes and rentals for the middle class.
Trump is scheduled to deliver his own economic speech in Michigan on Friday.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris forcibly panned the recent “harmful” attacks on Springfield, Ohio’s Haitian migrants during a National Association of Black Journalists panel in Philadelphia on Tuesday where she delivered her most extensive comments on those attacks and on race more largely, a topic she has shied away from focusing on — a stark contrast from her 2019 run for president.
“It’s a crying shame,” Harris said when asked about former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, spreading the unsubstantiated claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating neighbors’ pets. “I mean, my heart breaks for this community.”
A spokesperson for the city of Springfield told ABC News these claims are false, and that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.”
A rash of bomb threats have targeted schools, government buildings and elected officials’ homes in Springfield, forcing evacuations and closures. Harris noted that some children in Springfield had to evacuate their schools because of bomb threats on what was picture day for them.
“Children. Children. A whole community put in fear,” she said.
The vice president said those in power should understand the weight of their words and be measured in what they say. She argued that Trump’s comments about the migrants in Springfield have lost him the public’s trust.
“When you are bestowed with a microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that, that is an extension of what should not be lost in this moment, this concept of the public trust to then understand what the public trust means,” she said. “It means that you have been invested with trust to be responsible in the way you use your words, much less how you conduct yourself, and especially when you have been and then seek to be again, president of the United States of America.”
She called on the rhetoric to stop and for Americans to “turn the page.”
“I know that people are deeply troubled by what is happening to that community in Springfield, Ohio, and it’s got to stop,” Harris told the panel. “And we’ve got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country, is designed to have people pointing fingers at each other.”
Harris called the former president’s comments about migrants in Springfield “exhausting” and “harmful.”
“I think most people in our country, regardless of their race, are starting to see through this nonsense and to say, ‘You know what, let’s turn the page on this,'” she said. “This is exhausting and it’s harmful and it’s hateful and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for.”
Harris’ comments on Tuesday marked her harshest rebuke of the unfounded claims about Springfield’s Haitian migrants. Despite being asked multiple times by reporters about them, Harris had previously declined to comment.
The panel comes just days after an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club. The White House said Harris had a “cordial” call with the former president on Tuesday.
“I checked on to see if he was OK, and I told him what I have said publicly, ‘there is no place for political violence in our country,'” Harris said of the call. “I am in this election, in this race, for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy and in a democracy, there is no place for political violence. We can and should have healthy debates and discussion and disagreements, but not resort to violence to resolve those issues.”
Asked if she felt Secret Service could keep her and her family safe, Harris said, “I do.”
“But I mean, you can go back to Ohio, not everybody has Secret Service, and there are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe.”
The panel discussion also featured Harris’s most extensive remarks on race since launching her presidential bid over the summer.
She tied many of her economic proposals to the Black community, including her small business tax credit, saying “part of what I also know is that our young Black men, our Black men, just like any group of people … are really the backbone of our economy overall. And when they do better economically, we all do better.”
But in the time since she got into the race, at a similar NABJ panel interview in July, Trump got into a fiery back-and-forth with reporters and falsely questioned Harris’ race.
“So I’ve known her a long time, indirectly, not directly, very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said during that heated exchange. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris — the child of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, both immigrants to the United States — has not directly responded to Trump’s comments. In an August interview with CNN, after being asked to comment on the personal attacks Trump has lobbied at the vice president surrounding her racial identity, Harris dodged.
“Same old, tired playbook,” she told the network. “Next question, please.”
And when asked to comment on the same attacks during ABC News’ debate last week, instead of speaking about her own racial identity, Harris chose a more generic answer.
“I think it’s a — a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people,” she told ABC News’ David Muir.
Harris is not new to people falsely questioning her “Blackness.” During her presidential run in 2019, Harris faced questions about whether she was Black enough to identify as a Black candidate.
“I’m Black, and I’m proud of being Black,” Harris said on “The Breakfast Club” radio show in February of that year. “I was born Black. I will die Black, and I’m not going to make excuses for anybody because they don’t understand.”
Harris’ 2019 campaign also put a larger focus on race compared to her current run for president.
At the NBC debate in 2019, Harris strong-armed her way into the opportunity to take on then-Vice President Joe Biden on efforts to desegregate public schools, specifically school busing programs.
“As the only Black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race,” Harris said, interjecting as the moderators were moving on to someone else.
During that debate, Biden brought up his ability to work with politicians across the aisle, fondly recounting his relationship with segregationist Sens. James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia. Harris, who directly benefited from busing programs, jumped in to respond.
“It was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris continued. “And you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”
In another departure from her time as a candidate in 2019, as vice president, and as Biden’s running mate during his bid for reelection, Harris hardly mentions one of her top issues: Black maternal mortality.
In 2020, Harris had a section on her website’s issues page devoted to “Health Justice For Black Communities,” with a commitment to “fight to end the Black maternal mortality crisis.” Now, her website only says she’ll “combat maternal mortality” more generally. She introduced the Maternal CARE Act to tackle the issue while in the Senate. The bill mentioned “Black women” 10 times.
ABC News has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on the shift between her two presidential campaigns, and whether this is part of political calculation ahead of the general election. They did not respond by the time of publication.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Less than an hour after the ABC News presidential debate ended Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign called for another matchup, laying down a challenge to former President Donald Trump.
The campaign put out an email touting her performance at the debate and blasting Trump for his responses and demeanor.
The email ended with a direct question to the former president.
“Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump. That’s what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?” the email stated.
Trump responded personally — in an unusual visit to the “spin room” with reporters afterward.
“They want another debate because they lost,” he said. “So, we’ll, you know, think about that.”
Trump later appeared less inclined to participate, telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “I sort of think maybe I shouldn’t do it.”
“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I have to think about it, but if you won the debate, I sort of think maybe I shouldn’t do it. Why should I do another debate? She immediately said, ‘We want another.’ That’s, you know, what happens when you lose you immediately want to do a rematch.”
Still, he kept it open without shutting it down completely, saying “let’s see what happens.”
“I am not inclined to do it because I won the debate by a lot. But I think we let it settle in, and let’s see what happens,” Trump said.
After remaining noncommittal to a second debate with Harris, Trump once again said it was only because Harris felt like she lost the debate last night.
“When two fighters fight and one loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate, or they asked for a fight. So in this case, the debate. So we had two people. They lost very badly. The first thing they did is ask for a debate, because that’s what when a fighter loses, he says, I want a rematch. I want a rematch,” he said.
“Look, I’ve been told I’m a good debater. I think it was one of my better debates, maybe my best debate,” touted Trump who then started criticizing aspects of the debate he felt were unfair.
A second presidential debate has not been announced.
The vice presidential candidates are scheduled to debate on Oct. 1.
(WASHINGTON) — A highly-anticipated economic agenda to be unveiled by Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will include a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries, the Harris campaign announced.
The proposal will be presented to voters alongside other plans to address elevated inflation, such as bolstered antitrust enforcement in the grocery sector and greater latitude to investigate corporate practices, the campaign said in a press release.
A ban on price gouging would in theory disallow food and grocery companies from hiking prices an excessive amount over a set period of time, economists told ABC News. They disagreed, however, on whether the measure could control the rise of food prices or if such an outcome is desirable.
Inflation remains a top issue for voters and a potential vulnerability for Harris, since rapid price increases emerged during the Biden administration. While inflation has fallen dramatically from its peak, consumers still face prices roughly 20% higher than where they stood before Biden took office.
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Harris campaign provided a statement outlining its economic proposals.
“Vice President Harris knows that rising food prices remain a top concern for American families. Many big grocery chains that have seen production costs level off have nevertheless kept prices high and have seen their highest profits in two decades. While some food companies have passed along these savings, others still have not,” the statement said.
Here’s what to know about how this federal ban on price gouging would operate and whether it would be effective:
How would a federal price-gouging ban work?
The Harris campaign said the measure would set “clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.”
Details on the policy remain limited, however. Economists told ABC News that the Harris proposal may end up resembling similar bans currently on the books in 37 states. Those bans prohibit companies from exploiting a sudden imbalance between supply and demand by significantly hiking prices.
“The typical example is a natural disaster. If a water company comes and sells water at double, triple or five times the price of what people can get it at five miles away, just to be able to take advantage of the situation – that’s price gouging,” Niko Lusiani, director of the corporate power program at progressive advocacy group Roosevelt Forward, told ABC News.
State bans define “price gouging” in various ways. Some measures establish a subjective set of criteria, such as a sudden and significant spike in prices; while others detail a specific numerical amount of price growth necessary to violate the law, Luis Cabral, a professor of economics at New York University who studies price gouging, told ABC News.
“It’s not easy to measure,” Cabral said, noting that qualitative definitions risk being overly vague while quantitative ones struggle to set the boundaries around what constitutes price gouging.
Many of the state-level bans on this practice set a condition that an emergency is necessary to trigger application of the law. The Harris proposal would likely omit such a stipulation, Lusiani said, since we are years removed from the outbreak of COVID-19.
“It’ll clearly be different because now we’re on the other side of the pandemic,” Lusiani added, but he noted that current price hikes could be viewed as a result of that disruption.
The Harris campaign said it would enforce a ban by slapping offenders with financial penalties.
Most state price-gouging bans punish violators with civil penalties enforced by the state attorney general, while other measures impose criminal penalties, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a group that tracks state laws.
“Enforcement will be critical,” Lusiani said. “A ban by itself won’t stand on its own legs.”
Would this type of ban help control inflation?
Economists disagreed sharply about whether a federal price-gouging ban would help control price increases and, if so, to what extent that outcome would benefit the economy.
The stark divide owed in part to a difference of opinion about the role of corporate profiteering in the pandemic-era bout of inflation, as well as a clash over the effectiveness of government intervention in addressing it.
Experts who faulted corporate price gouging for a portion of the price increases said it arose from market concentration that allowed a handful of dominant companies in a given industry, including the food and grocery sector, to raise prices without fear of competitors undercutting them with lower-priced alternatives.
Grocery retailer profit margins surged in 2021 and rose even higher two years later, even after price increases had begun to cool, a Federal Trade Commission study in March showed.
A price-gouging ban would help police corporations that otherwise would be tempted to leverage their market power by excessively raising prices, the experts said.
“Large, incumbent corporations that control a large share of a sector, including grocery companies, have way too much power to control prices,” Lusiani said. “That’s an underlying cause of the inflation.”
Some economists who spoke to ABC News attributed the acceleration of price increases over recent years to a textbook example of imbalance between supply and demand. The pandemic snarled global supply chains and triggered lockdowns, causing shortages of goods and workers. Meanwhile, government stimulus boosted demand, sending too many dollars after too few products.
“It’s economics 101 that if you stimulate demand while simultaneously deterring supply, your equilibrium will be significantly higher prices,” Michael Faulkender, a professor of finance at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, told ABC News.
In turn, Faulkender dismissed any potential benefit from a federal price-gouging ban. “It just sounds to me that we’re creating even more burdensome regulations that will actually raise prices for consumers,” Faulkender said.
Joe Brusuelas, chief economist for the accounting firm RSM US, said he opposes an outright ban but supports moderate measures that could deter price hikes, such as expanded government oversight of corporate practices.
Bruseulas pointed to data released this week showing food prices had risen 2.2% in July compared to a year ago. That level of inflation essentially stands at normal levels, Brusuelas said, suggesting that price increases had been reined in without a federal price-gouging ban in place.
“I’m concerned when I hear the federal government use the word ‘ban,’ but I’m not concerned about an exercise in oversight,” Brusuelas said.