Updated August 16, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. ET

Vice President Harris unveiled an economic plan on Friday that focuses on the high costs of housing, food and raising children – expenses that matter most to voters who have been suffering from years of rising prices.

The plan includes a significant expansion of the child tax credit. Low- and middle-income families would receive up to $6,000 when they have a new baby. And Harris said she wants to restore the pandemic-era program that gave families up to $3,600 per child.

Republicans have also proposed a higher child tax credit. Vice presidential candidate Senator JD Vance said on Sunday that he would like to increase it to $5,000 per child.

Polls have shown that President Biden is struggling to get credit for his efforts to lower prices, and many voters say they trust Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump more on economic issues. However, polls also show that voters are less critical of Harris on economic issues.

“The costs are still too high and on a deeper level, too many people, no matter how hard they work, are finding it so difficult to even move forward,” Harris said Friday in Raleigh, NC.

Harris’ plans would cost a lot. Her campaign team has not said how much

The child tax allowance is popular with voters and is effective in reducing child poverty. However, expanding the program would also be costly.

“It would be very costly. The current child tax credit costs about $100 billion a year. This (proposal) would probably double that cost,” said Kevin Corinth, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute who worked for the White House Council on Economic Advisory Board during the Trump era.

The Harris team has not yet put a price tag on its plans.

Felicia Wong, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Roosevelt Forward, said Harris’ proposals would require new spending. “The good news is we definitely have that money in our country,” Wong said.

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“It’s about raising taxes on the rich and corporations and changing our tax code overall to make sure we can raise that revenue and then fund those investments,” she said.

Harris will focus on real estate prices

Harris announced a tax break proposal that her campaign says would lead to the construction of three million new housing units in four years, going beyond the Biden White House proposal to alleviate the housing shortage with two million new and renovated homes.

Harris’ plan would give developers unspecified tax incentives for first-time home buyers and affordable rental housing. She proposed a $40 billion fund to help local governments finance construction projects. The Biden White House had already proposed $20 billion. Like all spending, those proposals would depend on Congress’ willingness to fund them.

Harris said she will ask Congress to give first-time homebuyers up to $25,000 toward their down payment – a plan her campaign said could help more than 4 million first-time buyers. That’s more generous than a plan Biden announced in his State of the Union address this year that would have given first-time buyers a $10,000 tax credit and helped about 400,000 first-time buyers with a down payment.

And she said she would support legislation that limits tax breaks for corporate investors who buy up homes, as well as a bill that would prohibit landlords from buying algorithmic data that helps them raise rents.

Harris will take tough action against corporations, her campaign team says

Harris and Biden made campaign-style comments Thursday about their efforts to lower prescription drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries. Like Biden, Harris is proposing expanding the $35 cap on insulin prices to everyone, not just seniors — as well as a $2,000 cap on prescription drug copayments.

Harris argued that companies make too much money off consumers – a theme she hinted at during her campaign when she referred to her work on price fixing during her tenure as California’s attorney general.

“A loaf of bread costs 50% more today than it did before the pandemic. Ground beef has become almost 50% more expensive. Many of the major food companies are reporting their highest profits in two decades. And while many grocery chains are passing on those savings, others still aren’t,” Harris said.

Harris called for a federal ban on price gouging in the food sector and announced that her administration would more aggressively investigate and prosecute price fixing in the meat supply chain.

This proposal is similar to an approach taken by the Biden administration, which said in September 2021 that it would crack down on price fixing, enforce antitrust laws in the meat sector and also provide financial support to smaller players to stimulate competition.

Harris’ plan would give the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the power to investigate and impose penalties on companies, her campaign said. Many large retailers have kept food prices high instead of passing on the savings to consumers, Harris said.

Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser in the Trump White House, said some of Harris’ proposals would amount to “price controls” and could lead to supply shortages. He said Trump’s approach of cutting taxes, deregulating and boosting energy production would better counter inflation.

“There’s no major price gouging at Safeways, Giants and 7-Eleven – their margins are just very, very low,” Hassett told reporters on a conference call.

Copyright: NPR