In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, today, Harris laid out her three-pillar plan for an “opportunity economy.” She explained that she would lower costs by cutting taxes for the middle class, cutting the red tape that stops housing construction, take on corporate landlords who are hiking rental prices, work with builders and developers to construct 3 million new homes and rentals, and help first-time homebuyers with $25,000 down payment assistance. She also promised to enact a federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries and to cap prescription drug prices by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies.
Harris said she plans to invest in innovation by raising the deduction for startup businesses from its current $5,000 to $50,000 and providing low- or no-interest loans to small businesses that want to expand. Her goal is to open the way for 25 million new small businesses in her first four years, noting that small businesses create nearly 50% of private sector jobs in the U.S.
Harris plans to create manufacturing jobs of the future by investing in biomanufacturing and aerospace, remaining “dominant in AI, quantum computing, blockchain, and other emerging technologies, and expand[ing] our lead in clean energy innovation and manufacturing.” She vowed to see that the next generation of breakthroughs—“from advanced batteries to geothermal to advanced nuclear—are not just invented, but built here in America by American workers.” Investing in these industries means strengthening factory towns, retooling existing factories, hiring locally, and working with unions. She vowed to make jobs available for skilled workers without college degrees and to cut red tape to reform permitting for innovation.
“I am a capitalist,” she said. “I believe in free and fair markets. I believe in consistent and transparent rules of the road to create a stable business environment. And I know the power of American innovation.” She said she would be pragmatic in her approach to the economy, seeking practical solutions to problems and taking good ideas from wherever they come.
“Kamala Harris, Reagan Democrat!” conservative pundit Bill Kristol posted on social media after her speech.
For his part, Trump has promised an across-the-board tariff of 10% to 20% that billionaire Mark Cuban on the Fox News Channel called “insane” and Quin Hillyer of the
Washington Examiner warned “would almost certainly cause immense price hikes domestically, goad other countries into retaliating, and perhaps set off an international trade war” that could “wreck the economy.” Cuban then told Jake Tapper of CNN that Trump’s promise to impose 10% price controls on credit card interest rates and price caps is “Socialism 101.”
Yesterday, more than 400 economists and high-ranking U.S. policymakers endorsed Harris, and today, the members of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s presidential leadership teams in Michigan, Iowa, and Vermont announced they would be supporting Harris, in part because of Trump’s economic policies.
While Trump insisted yet again today that “the economy is doing really, really badly,” the stock market closed at a record high today for the fourth day in a row.
In 2004 a senior advisor to President George W.
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