As Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump take part of their first and presumably solely debate of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, they’re anticipated to area questions on a number of the most urgent points for People, together with the financial system, immigration, abortion entry, overseas affairs and others.
Harris, a latecomer to the race who earned the nomination after President Biden introduced he was dropping out, has not introduced many insurance policies in the course of the course of her brief marketing campaign, however she has launched some proposals and has her document as vice chairman. Listed below are some key factors from the plans she’s supplied, details about her document and what she’s mentioned about a few of these topics.
Tax plan
Trump and Harris have competing tax plans. Each nominees’ plans must be handed by Congress, which has the facility of the purse. Here is what Harris has proposed up to now:
- Harris says she’d present greater tax advantages for households however would offset the prices by elevating company taxes, whereas Trump has mentioned he’d prolong the tax cuts enacted in 2017.
- Beneath Harris’ tax plan, in response to an evaluation by the Penn Wharton Funds Mannequin, 95% of People would see decrease taxes, and better earners would pay extra taxes. The highest 0.1% — whose annual common revenue exceeds $14 million — would pay about $167,000 extra in taxes.
- Harris desires to eradicate federal taxes on suggestions, which Trump first proposed.
- She additionally says she desires to offer a monetary cushion for small companies with a tenfold enhance within the startup expense deduction — lifting it from $5,000 to $50,000. New companies would not want to assert the deduction of their first 12 months, when many take losses and wouldn’t be capable of use it. As a substitute, they’d be capable of wait till they’re worthwhile and use the deduction at the moment. Companies would additionally be capable of take a part of the deduction in a single 12 months and save the remaining for future years.
Baby tax credit score
- After Trump’s operating mate JD Vance pitched boosting the kid tax credit score to $5,000, up from the present high tax break of $2,000, Harris one-upped Vance’s quantity, suggesting a baby tax credit score of $6,000, though this may be for the mother and father of newborns.
- Harris additionally suggests a return to the pandemic-era growth of the kid tax credit score, as much as $3,600 for younger youngsters. She hasn’t launched revenue eligibility thresholds, but it surely’s possible that it could section out for these at greater revenue ranges.
- Earlier this 12 months, Senate Republicans blocked laws that will have elevated the kid tax credit score.
Housing scarcity
Harris says she’d deal with the nation’s housing scarcity with a number of initiatives. She guarantees to construct 3 million reasonably priced new properties and leases by the top of her first time period, providing tax breaks to builders who assemble properties for first-time residence patrons. She’s additionally proposing a $40 billion fund to assist native governments discover options to the low housing inventory.
And he or she desires to offer People who’ve paid their lease on time for 2 years with as much as $25,000 in down-payment help, with extra help for first-generation householders.
Inflation
- Inflation has cooled practically to pre-pandemic ranges — it is now at 2.9% — however costs have risen practically 21% because the starting of the pandemic. A current survey discovered two-thirds of middle-income households mentioned they’re falling behind their price of dwelling
- Harris is attempting to deal with the results of inflation on lower- and middle-class People, an strategy utilized by the Biden administration. She blames worth gouging by meals suppliers and grocery chains for top costs on the retailer and pledges to tackle companies with the primary federal legislation towards worth gouging. Economists have expressed doubts in regards to the efficacy of such a legislation as a result of they are saying that the explanations for meals inflation are advanced.
- She additionally desires to decrease prescription drug prices, which has been a spotlight for the Biden administration. Final month, the White Home introduced Medicare reached agreements with drug producers for decrease costs for 10 medicine that deal with a variety of illnesses, from coronary heart failure and blood clots to diabetes, leading to financial savings for sufferers of 38% to 79%, in response to the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies. It was Harris who forged the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Discount Act, which granted Medicare the drug negotiating authority.
Immigration
- Harris has not but issued an immigration coverage platform. At marketing campaign occasions, Harris has principally introduced up the bipartisan border safety deal that collapsed in Congress earlier this 12 months after Trump urged GOP lawmakers to reject it. Harris has promised to revive the invoice and accused Trump of scuttling it for political causes.
- The laws would have enacted everlasting restrictions on asylum, given the president the facility to shortly deport migrants when border crossings soar and boosted the ranks of border brokers, deportation officers, immigration judges and asylum adjudicators. It might even have expanded authorized immigration, allocating 50,000 new immigrant visas yearly for 5 years.
- Whereas the bipartisan border deal didn’t embrace a legalization program for undocumented immigrants — a longtime Democratic precedence in immigration negotiations — Harris has expressed help for an “earned” path to citizenship for this inhabitants on the marketing campaign path.
- Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris’ marketing campaign supervisor, signaled to CBS Information that Harris would possible proceed a June order by Mr. Biden that has severely curtailed entry to the U.S. asylum system. It is a transfer officers credit score for a four-year-low in unlawful border crossings.
- Harris’ marketing campaign has tried to distance her from the extra liberal immigration positions she espoused when she was a presidential candidate in 2020. These prior positions included an openness to decriminalizing the act of crossing the border with out authorization and overhauling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Abortion
Harris and Trump have opposing views on abortion entry, a problem that may very well be a vital motivator for voters in November.
- Each Trump and Harris have highlighted the Supreme Courtroom’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, and the function that the three justices appointed by Trump performed in that landmark choice, albeit for various causes: Trump has touted his nomination of three of the 5 justices who voted to overturn Roe, whereas Harris has criticized her opponent for particularly deciding on justices who would dismantle the constitutional proper to abortion. For the reason that excessive courtroom’s choice in Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group, practically one-third of states have near-total bans on the process in place, whereas entry to abortion is severely restricted in a handful of others.
- Harris has made abortion rights a focus of her marketing campaign and lambasted “Trump abortion bans” on the path.
- In her speech on the Democratic Nationwide Conference accepting the get together’s presidential nominee, the vice chairman pledged to signal into legislation laws that restores the federal proper to abortion — if such a invoice is handed by Congress.
IVF
Entry to in vitro fertilization providers turned a marketing campaign concern after the Alabama Supreme Courtroom dominated in February that frozen embryos created in the course of the IVF course of may very well be thought of youngsters. The choice threatened the provision of IVF providers in Alabama and thrust entry to fertility remedies into the nationwide dialog, together with among the many presidential candidates.
- Harris has repeatedly mentioned she helps the appropriate of girls to make their very own selections about their our bodies and family-planning, and instructed the group on the DNC that since Roe’s reversal, she has heard tales of {couples} who’ve had their IVF remedies reduce off.
- The vice chairman mentioned in a video shared to social media that Trump “is actually the architect of this complete disaster,” and mentioned the Alabama ruling is a “direct outcome” of the Supreme Courtroom’s choice overturning Roe.
Local weather
Harris has not outlined her local weather coverage but, however she is anticipated to proceed to pursue the objectives of the 2022 Inflation Discount Act, which funded vitality and local weather initiatives aimed toward decreasing carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.
- As vice chairman, Harris advocates shifting the nation towards a “clear vitality financial system” whereas not fully backing away from oil and gasoline, which is a significant trade in battleground states like Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is among the high pure gasoline producers within the nation.
- In an interview with CNN, Harris mentioned that as president, she would not ban fracking — a method for extracting pure gasoline from shale — a departure from a press release she made in 2019 that she’d help a fracking ban. Citing the creation of 300,000 clear vitality jobs in the course of the Biden administration, she instructed CNN that her expertise as vice chairman exhibits “we are able to enhance a thriving clear vitality financial system with out banning fracking.”
- A Harris marketing campaign spokesperson mentioned 300,000 clear vitality jobs have been created underneath the Biden-Harris administration in each 2021 and 2022.
- The Democratic Celebration platform says it is going to enhance protections towards drilling and mining within the Arctic, though U.S. oil manufacturing has hit document highs throughout Mr. Biden’s presidency. Mr. Biden permitted nearly 50% extra gasoline and oil leases throughout his time in workplace than Trump did throughout his first three years in workplace.
- Trump has vowed to undo what he calls Biden’s “electrical automobile mandate” on Day One in workplace. A spokesperson for Harris’ marketing campaign instructed Axios Harris does not help an electrical automobile mandate. The Biden administration has not issued a mandate, but it surely has launched incentives to encourage People to purchase EVs and set a goal that half of all new automobile gross sales be zero emissions by 2030.
Weapons
- President Biden in 2022 signed probably the most vital replace to gun security legislation in nearly three many years within the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and New York. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act augmented background checks for gun patrons underneath 21, supplied billions for psychological well being providers and closed the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to stop convicted home abusers from buying a firearm for 5 years. It additionally clarified the definition of gun sellers — 26 GOP-led states are suing to dam this provision. The measure additionally creates penalties for straw purchases and gun trafficking. In 2023, Mr. Biden introduced the creation of the White Home Workplace of Gun Violence Prevention, to be overseen by Harris.
- Earlier than she turned the nominee, Harris visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Florida, the location of the 2018 mass capturing that left 17 lifeless, the place she referred to as on states to go “purple flag” legal guidelines, which permit courts to grab weapons from these deemed to be a menace to themselves or others. Twenty-one states have enacted purple flag legal guidelines, however many don’t implement them. She additionally introduced federal funding and assets aimed toward offering coaching and technical help to assist states with their purple flag applications. In 2024, the Justice Division introduced the creation of the Nationwide Excessive Danger Safety Order Useful resource Middle, devoted to coaching and technical help to help states and localities in implementing their purple flag applications.
- At her speech on the Democratic Nationwide Conference, Harris solely made passing reference to gun violence. “On this election, many different elementary freedoms are at stake,” she mentioned. “The liberty to dwell secure from gun violence in our colleges, communities and locations of worship.”
Schooling
- As a senator, Harris backed a invoice that will have supplied tuition-free faculty for many households.
- The Democratic Celebration’s platform additionally calls totally free faculty tuition for all. This isn’t an concept Harris has been discussing on the marketing campaign path.
Israel and Gaza
Each Harris and Trump have, at occasions, been crucial of Israel’s dealing with of its conflict towards Hamas in Gaza. However neither has threatened to drag help for the ally.
- Harris has referred to as the bloodshed in Gaza “devastating,” however vowed there could be no change in coverage towards Israel.
- She has pushed for a cease-fire deal that will launch the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
- She backs a two-state answer.
Ukraine and Russia
- Harris pledged in her DNC deal with that she “will stand sturdy with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”
- Harris accused Russia of committing “crimes towards humanity” in Ukraine a 12 months after the conflict started.
- The Biden administration has spearheaded various assist packages for Ukraine, together with weapons, and labored with allies to sanction Russia for its invasion. Nonetheless, the administration’s response — particularly early on within the conflict — has been criticized as slow-moving, and extra lately, Republican opposition in Congress additional slowed assist to Ukraine.
China
Harris has supplied few particulars about how her China coverage would differ from Mr. Biden’s. In her Democratic Nationwide Conference speech, Harris mentioned “America — not China — wins the competitors for the twenty first century.”
- She instructed “Face the Nation” in September 2023 that the U.S.-China financial relationship is “not about decoupling, it’s about de-risking.”
- Harris briefly met Chinese language President Xi Jinping in 2022 in Bangkok amid friction between the 2 international locations. The vice chairman mentioned she pressured the necessity to “preserve open traces of communication to responsibly handle the competitors between our international locations.”
- She has condemned China’s aggression within the South China Sea, accusing it of “undermining key parts of the worldwide rules-based order” and coercing and intimidating its neighbors.
- Harris has additionally reaffirmed U.S. help for Taiwan.
- Within the Senate, Harris cosponsored the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and the Uyghur Human Rights Coverage Act. Trump signed each into legislation.
Iran nuclear deal
It is unclear whether or not Harris would search to renegotiate a brand new nuclear cope with Iran if she wins the election. Through the 2020 marketing campaign, Harris, who was operating in a crowded Democratic presidential major, instructed the Council on International Relations that she would search to rejoin the Iran nuclear settlement, “as long as Iran additionally returned to verifiable compliance.”
