On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris gave her first big economic policy speech as the Democratic presidential nominee. It was, of course, very different from the “economic” speech and news conferences Donald Trump has held in the past couple of weeks.
For one thing, Harris actually outlined her economic proposals, rather than veering off onto topics like who has the biggest crowds and how windmills are killing birds. For another, she doesn’t seem to have said anything demonstrably untrue — a sharp contrast with Trump, who lied or distorted the facts about twice per minute during an event at Mar-a-Lago.
But what about the substance? The usual suspects are claiming that Harris revealed herself to be an extreme leftist. Even some middle-of-the-road economic commentators have been hyperventilating, saying that she’s essentially calling for price controls, which is odd, because she didn’t say anything like that.
All in all, Harris staked out a moderately center-left position, not too different from President Biden’s original Build Back Better agenda, which he was able to implement only in part because in an evenly divided Senate, Joe Manchin had an effective veto.
So let’s go through the substance, working off a fact sheet released by the Harris campaign, which provided more detail than the speech itself.
The most important and, as I see it, best proposal was for the restoration of an expanded child tax credit, which the Biden administration implemented in 2021 but expired at the beginning of 2022 because Democrats didn’t have a big enough congressional majority. This credit significantly reduced child poverty while it was in effect; Harris would supplement it with an even bigger credit for families with children in their first year.
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