Kamala Harris is the current vice president of the United States and is now running for president, where she hopes to pave “A New Way Forward” for all Americans. Before Harris was vice president, she served as District Attorney of San Francisco from 2004-2011. Following her tenure as San Francisco’s district attorney, she became Attorney General of California from 2011-2017, and then as a US Senate from 2017-2021. In her campaign for presidency, Harris is pushing for an America that protects citizens’ fundamental freedoms, strengthens our democracy, and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.
Tax Cut
According to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s Policy Book, they plan on restoring the Child Tax Credit to help relieve thousands of families from the burden of high taxes by providing them with $6,000 in tax relief for middle-income and low-income families for the first year of their child’s life. Harris and Walz also plan on expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit that supports low-income working families by also covering low-income workers who do not have a child in the home– something that was not considered within this ruling before.
Lower cost
Harris and Walz also plan to invest in building resilient food supply chains. As too many food chains are monopolized, the two want to focus on expanding small businesses like farmers, growers and processors to create wide-set supply chains. They aspire to instill competitiveness in the marketplace to increase productivity by attacking any anti-competition companies who disrupt the flow in the food and grocery industry. Lastly, Harris and Walz plan to ban price gouging that raises the price of goods to places that are considered unreasonable to most.
On top of controlling the costs on retail goods, Harris and Walz also propose to lower healthcare costs. The Harris-Walz administration plans to expand the tax credit of the Affordable Care Act (which increases the amount of government-funded health insurance coverage an uninsured person has) and make it available for middle to lower class Americans. Harris and Walz also aim to lower prescription drug costs by extending the Inflation Reduction Act, building upon the Biden-Harris administration’s work by cutting the costs of the most commonly used drugs. In the Inflation Reduction Act, Harris and Walz anticipate increasing resources to affordable treatments.
As of late, Americans have consumed more energy than they produced, Kamala and Walz plan to build on existing policies that have already been working on lowering energy costs for example, The Inflation Reduction Act that works to extend the Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit. The Production Tax Credit is an inflation-adjusted per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) tax credit for electricity generated by qualified energy source, and worked to lower 2.3kWh by 20% back in 2016. Since the IRA passed, 75% of private sector clean energy investments have occurred in counties with lower than median household incomes. Kamala’s administration wants to expand investments in a clean energy economy and make sure these projects are completed in a timely manner. Harris and Walz also want to lower power costs for working class families who struggle to pay energy expenses.
Lastly, the Harris-Walz administration intends on protecting consumers by limiting fraud. The average household pays more than $650 in junk fees annually Harris has pursued multiple fraud cases in her career and plans on educating elderly citizens and what protections they were entitled to, such as the bureau of consumer protection, which works to fight fraud among citizens. The administration will tackle subscription, insurance and financial fraud that is an everyday problem for American citizens, especially those that target the elderly.
Affordable rent and homes
Affordable rent and mortgage is rare in the United States, and is a huge issue for homeowners, those looking to rent a home or apartment. With the expansion of the Child Tax credit it will benefit families and individuals struggling to make rent or pay off their mortgage. “Over 21 million renter households spent more than 30% of their income on housing costs in 2023,” states the Census Bureau. Harris and Walz plan to address this issue by lowering the cost it takes to build and repair a home, other factors include location, materials or condition of the home that cause the rise in price. By expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), Harris wants to make it so developers pay the larger costs that it takes to build affordable housing units. Since a majority of Americans spend their income paying off mortgage or meeting rent, many don’t have left over funds. With this credit established, general Americans will experience an alleviation in cost of rent and mortgage.
Harris and Walz also want to instate a new tax credit that prevents gentrification. They instate this credit generally targeting senior residents who don’t have the financial means to keep up with property taxes or to rehabilitate their homes. Harris plans to instate this tax by supporting the new construction or rehabilitation of over 400,000 owner-occupied homes. This new tax credit would only be affordable to single-family homes that the owner resides in and the credit is meant to support any families who want to settle down.
Small business investments
Millions of Americans earn their living through small businesses which feed trillions of dollars into the economy. Many small businesses don’t have access to capital and struggle filing taxes. With Kamala’s plan she will expand on the revenue that small businesses give to America while simultaneously making it easier for them to file taxes and cut unnecessary licensing requirements. She will call for an expansion on the start-up expense deduction from $5,000 to $50,000. This will drive more businesses to become more successful by deducting a larger portion of money to launch their ideas. Harris and Walz are setting a goal to start up 25 million new businesses which will kick America into economic growth and return millions of dollars into the economy making the U.S flourish. Lastly she wants to “cut red tape” by making it easier for businesses to file their taxes and remove unnecessary licensing requirements.
