Harris aims to stem Trump’s economic attacks by proposing new tax breaks in bid to cut costs

RALEIGH, NC — RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is promoting a broad set of economic proposals that would provide new tax cuts and lower the cost of living for Americans, aiming to address financial concerns that are top of mind among voters and that Republican Donald Trump is trying to to stand on her doorstep.

Harris will be in the battleground state of North Carolina on Friday to lay out his plans, including a proposed federal ban on food price gouging. She also proposes $25,000 in down payment assistance for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for start-up homebuilders, among other things.

Harris is calling for tax breaks aimed at families as well as middle and low income earners. She would expand the child tax credit to $3,600 — and $6,000 for children in their first year of life. Harris would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to cover people in lower-income jobs and without children, which the campaign estimates would reduce their effective tax rate by $1,500.

Harris also wants to lower health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.

Many of the changes would require congressional approval, far from a given in the current political environment.

Harris is trying to contain Trump’s attacks on her as “a radical liberal from California who broke the economy,” as he put it during a speech Thursday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he displayed popular items from the grocery store meant to represent the high cost of food.

Year-on-year inflation has hit a three-year low, but food prices are still 21% above three-year levels. A Labor Department report this week showed that nearly all of July’s inflation reflected higher rents and other housing costs, a trend that real-time data showed was easing. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, helping to lower inflation.

Harris’ food pricing proposal would instruct the Federal Trade Commission to penalize “major corporations” that engage in price gouging and highlights the lack of competition in the meatpacking industry for driving up meat prices.

Polls show Americans are more likely to trust Trump than Harris when it comes to handling the economy: About 45 percent say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38 percent say that about Harris. About 1 in 10 don’t trust either Harris or Trump to better manage the economy, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

Riding a resurgence of enthusiasm since the Democratic campaign’s restart, Harris has engaged in a battleground state blitz in recent weeks that has widened the number of races considered competitive by strategists. In North Carolina, Democrats are cautiously navigating a renewed energy in an economically vibrant state that hasn’t been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.

North Carolina has been a hot spot for visits by Biden and Harris this year. After Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June, Raleigh was the first city to hold a rally in an attempt to reinvigorate Democratic voters. Harris also made two stops in North Carolina — in Greensboro and Fayetteville — in the weeks leading up to Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.

“When it comes to North Carolina, we went from a situation where Joe Biden was almost certain to lose here, while Kamala Harris has a very real chance of winning,” said the State University political science professor of North Carolina, Steven Greene.

Dan Kanninen, director of battleground states for the Harris campaign, said North Carolina “is as likely as any of those states to be the top state, so we invested heavily in it from the start.”

Harris is trying to strike a balance in defining his own image and economic agenda while giving credit for the Biden administration’s track record.

Biden was asked Thursday if he thinks Harris will move away from his economic record. “He won’t,” he said.

In their first joint event since Biden’s resignation, he and Harris were in Maryland on Thursday, where they presented successful negotiations to lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries on 10 prescription drugs. The change was made possible by a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping law focused largely on climate and health care policy.

During the event, Harris praised Biden and said “few leaders in our nation have done more” to make health care affordable. The president criticized big pharmaceutical companies and claimed Trump was “fighting to escape what we just went through.”

Biden echoed some of Harris’ proposed policies while touting his economic legacy.

“I have no problem with companies making money, but not raising prices,” Biden said. “I thank God that in the last three months that I have been president of the United States, I have finally been able to do what I tried to do when I was a young senator.”

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Brown reported from Washington.