Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have fundamentally different views of who our economy should work for. She believes it should work for working people, the middle class, and small businesses, while he believes it should work for big corporations and his billionaire buddies and donors.
FACT: Vice President Harris was raised by a working mother in a middle-class neighborhood. That’s why she has plans to put money in the pockets of middle-class families, bring down everyday costs, and invest in small businesses and entrepreneurs.
- Harris: “I grew up in a middle-class household. For most of my childhood, we were renters. My mother saved for well over a decade to buy a home.”
- CNBC: “Her plan includes a federal ban on price gouging on groceries, a new $6,000 child tax credit for families with newborns and a $25,000 boost for first-time home buyers.”
- Financial Times: “The common thread of the proposals is that each would address concerns expressed by average American voters, from high inflation to the cost of housing and the expense of raising children.”
- CNN: “Harris unveiled Wednesday a proposal to massively increase the existing small business tax deduction for startup costs and cut the red tape that impedes small businesses’ formation and growth.”
FACT: Her candidacy and policies have the support of labor unions, business leaders, and economic experts.
- NBC: “Many of America’s largest labor unions have now announced their endorsements of Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, as the vice president intensifies her campaign for the Democratic nomination.”
- More than 90 CEOs – including the chief executives of Yelp and Chobani as well as the former CEOs of PepsiCo, Ford, and Yahoo! – have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, as has the Leadership Now Project, another coalition of business leaders.
- Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics: “Hands down, VP Harris is being much more fiscally disciplined than President Trump.”
- Mark Cuban: “Kamala Harris is listening to business people and getting their feedback on what’s fair and what will lead to more investment in business.”
- Roger Hochschild, former CEO of Discover Financial Services: “I think her policy she announced around capital gains tax brings us back, I would say, more towards the mainstream than where we were under Trump. [They] are fair but also are very balanced… If you look at what Trump did for the economy, he was clearly the worst president since the Hoover administration.”
- Ron Insana, CNBC senior analyst and CEO of iFi AI: “Trying to label her as a socialist or a far-leftist is beyond the pale really. There is nothing in her economic proposals…that would suggest she is an ultra-leftist in any way, shape or form.”
- New York Times: “Megan Curran, the director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, said an expanded child tax credit could be a ‘game changer for kids.’”
FACT: Trump’s plans will drive up prices for the middle class just to give more handouts to billionaires and large corporations.
- USA Today: “Railing against inflation, Trump floats 20% tariff that could boost prices, experts say”
- Center for American Progress Action Fund: “A 20 percent across-the-board import tax combined with the 60 percent tax on Chinese goods would amount to about a $3,900 tax increase for a middle-income family.”
- The Peterson Institute: “High tariffs also imply a massive shifting of the tax burden from richer taxpayers toward lower-income Americans.”
- CBPP: “The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver on Its Promises”
FACT: Experts say Harris’ plans would bring growth while Trump’s would stunt our economic growth, set off an inflation bomb, add trillions to the deficit, and send our country spiraling into a recession.
- Axios: “16 Nobel economists see a Trump inflation bomb”
- Reuters: “Goldman Sachs sees biggest boost to US economy from Harris win”
- The conservative-leaning American Action Forum: “Given a 10 percent tariff, U.S. households would have nearly $2,350 in additional annual costs, while adding a 60 percent tariff on China would drive costs up to $3,900.”
- Washington Post: “Harris plan could solve the longtime affordable housing crisis”
- National Housing Conference: “The Harris-Walz housing plan – detailed, serious, and impactful”
- USA Today: “According to a Moody’s study, Trump’s plan would trigger a recession by mid-2025.”
- Bloomberg: Trump and Vance’s spending plans “could collectively cost as much as $10.5 trillion over a decade, a massive sum that would exceed the combined budgets of every domestic federal agency.”
- Washington Post: “Former president Donald Trump has outlined policies that could add trillions of dollars to the rising national debt if he wins in November, and analysts are skeptical of the new claims and proposals he says would mitigate their fiscal impact.”
- Marc Goldwein, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: “[Trump’s] overall agenda doesn’t seem to be all that pro-growth.”
FACT: Americans support Vice President Harris’ vision for the economy and trust her more than President Trump to manage it.
- Financial Times: “More Americans trust Kamala Harris to handle the US economy than Donald Trump, according to a new poll that marks a sharp change in voter sentiment following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the White House race.”
- In a CBS Poll of battleground states, voters say Harris is more focused on looking out for the middle class.
