Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris unveiled her economic plan in a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The vice president revealed her economic plan, focused on expanding opportunity to all Americans, including housing, health care costs, and small businesses. Harris compared each part of her agenda to that of Donald Trump; she promised a bright future and portrayed the former president’s a dark vision of the past.
“If you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for,” Harris said, adding that Trump is fighting for billionaires and large companies while she is fighting for “working and middle class Americans.”
Speaking to the Raleigh crowd on Friday afternoon, Harris said: “As president, I will be laser focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity. Together, we will build what I call an opportunity economy.”
More than one million Americans will get a tax relief under her plan, she said, referring to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.
Harris promised to focus on the middle class.
“Key to creating this opportunity economy is building up our middle class,” she said. Building up the middle class is going to be a “defining goal” of her presidency, Harris told the crowd. By contrast, Trump plans to “devastate” the middle class, she said.
Her plan, she said, will focus on lowering the cost of living, increasing economic security for all Americans, ensuring salaries are ”enough to provide you and your family with a good quality of life,” making sure no child should have to grow up in poverty, providing the chance to join a union if someone chooses, and allowing Americans to “retire with dignity.”
She said she grew up in a middle class childhood, explaining how her parents were “renters.” She also touched on her past working at McDonald’s for “family money” while other coworkers were working the McDonald’s job as one of many jobs to keep their families afloat. If elected, Harris would make history as the first president to work at the fast food chain.
As part of her plan, Harris also said she would “take on health care.” She received cheers from the crowd when she mentioned the Biden-Harris administration’s successful efforts to lower the costs of insulin and prescription drugs.
The engaged audience also started chanting “We’re not going back!”, beating Harris to the punch, when she said that Donald Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Her plan also offers a first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food. To discourage bad actors, her agenda will provide “new penalities for opportunistic companies that break the rules.”