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Harris wants to soften Trump’s economic attacks by proposing new tax breaks to reduce costs
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Harris wants to soften Trump’s economic attacks by proposing new tax breaks to reduce costs

RALEIGH, NC — RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is touting a broad range of economic policy proposals that would include new tax cuts and cost-of-living cuts for Americans to address voters’ financial concerns that Republican President Donald Trump is trying to pin on her.

Harris will outline her plans on Friday in the swing state of North Carolina, including a proposal for a federal ban on price gouging on food. She also proposes a $25,000 down payment for certain first-time home buyers and tax breaks for home construction, among other measures.

Harris is calling for tax relief for families and middle- and low-income earners. She would increase the child tax credit to up to $3,600 – and to $6,000 for children in their first year. Harris would expand the earned income tax credit to people in low-income jobs without children, which the campaign estimates would reduce their effective tax burden by $1,500.

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

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

Harris is trying to downplay Trump’s attacks that he is a “radical California liberal who ruined the economy,” as he put it in a speech Thursday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he displayed popular supermarket foods to illustrate high food prices.

Year-over-year inflation has hit its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are still 21 percent higher than they were three years ago. A Labor Department report this week showed that nearly all of July’s inflation came from higher rents and other housing costs, a trend that is moderating, according to real-time data. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, contributing to lower inflation.

Harris’ grocery pricing proposal would direct the Federal Trade Commission to penalize “large companies” that increase prices and cite a lack of competition in the meatpacking industry as a reason for the rise in meat prices.

Polls show that Americans trust Trump more than Harris on economic issues: About 45 percent say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38 percent say the same about Harris. According to the latest poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about one in ten don’t trust either Harris or Trump to manage the economy better.

Harris has capitalized on renewed enthusiasm since the Democratic campaign restarted, and has launched a blitz on battleground states in recent weeks that has increased the number of elections strategists see as closely contested. In North Carolina, Democrats are cautiously navigating the new energy in an economically dynamic state that has not been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.

North Carolina has been a popular destination for Biden and Harris’ visits this year. After Biden’s disastrous performance at the debate against Trump in June, Raleigh was the first city where he held a rally to re-mobilize Democratic voters. Harris also made two stops in North Carolina – in Greensboro and Fayetteville – in the weeks before Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.

“In North Carolina, we were starting from a situation where Joe Biden was almost certain to lose, while Kamala Harris had a very real chance of winning,” said Steven Greene, a professor of political science at North Carolina State University.

Dan Kanninen, head of swing states for the Harris campaign, said North Carolina “has the same chance as any other state to be the tipping point, which is why we have invested heavily in this state from the beginning.”

Harris is trying to strike a balance between defining her own image and her economic agenda, without ignoring the Biden administration’s track record.

Biden was asked Thursday whether he thought Harris would distance herself from his economic record. “She won’t,” he said.

In their first joint speech since Biden’s exit, he and Harris presented successful negotiations in Maryland on Thursday to lower the prices of 10 prescription drugs for Medicare recipients. The move was made possible by a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping bill that largely focuses on climate and health policy.

During the event, Harris praised Biden and said “few politicians in our country have done more” to make health care affordable. The president criticized big pharmaceutical companies, arguing that Trump is “fighting to get rid of what we just passed.”

Biden repeated some of the measures proposed by Harris and touted his economic legacy.

“I have no problem with corporations making money, but I have no problem with price gouging,” Biden said. “I thank God that in the last three months of my term as President of the United States, I have finally been able to accomplish what I tried to do as a young Senator.”

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Brown reported from Washington.

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