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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
Kamala Harris will this week propose drastically expanding tax relief for Americans starting small businesses from $5,000 to $50,000, in the Democratic presidential candidate’s latest effort to sketch out her economic policy plans with two months to go until November’s election.
A Harris campaign official said the vice-president would detail her plans for a tenfold expansion in small business tax deductions for start-up expenses in a speech in New Hampshire on Wednesday. Harris will visit the New England state before a separate campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, later this week as she gears up for next week’s make-or-break debate against her Republican rival, Donald Trump.
The campaign official said Harris would also set a goal of 25mn new small business applications in her first term as president, compared to 19mn small businesses that have been started under Joe Biden’s watch. The official said the vice-president would also vow to introduce new measures to cut red tape for small business owners by making it easier for them to file taxes and easing requirements for occupational licenses.
Harris, who became the Democratic nominee for the White House this summer, after Biden suspended his re-election campaign and endorsed her as his successor, has come under mounting pressure to lay out her plans for the US economy. The economy, and the cost of living in particular, is often cited by voters as their top issue heading into the election — and the president had struggled to sell his economic agenda to the electorate.
Harris has said that, if elected president, she would seek to build an “opportunity economy” that gives more Americans the chance to prosper. Last month, she rolled out her plans to ease the cost of living crisis, including a $6,000 tax credit for families with newborn children, an expansion of an existing credit for families with older children to $3,600 per year, and up to $25,000 in downpayment support for first-time homebuyers.
The vice-president, who was a prosecutor in California before becoming a US senator and later Biden’s running mate, has also vowed to crack down on price gouging by large corporations — a plan that has alarmed economists, who warn price controls could have a damaging distortive effect on the market.
Harris has also indicated that she endorses Biden’s proposals to increase the corporate tax rate from 21 per cent to 28 per cent — plans that have struggled to gain enough support in a sharply divided US Congress.
Meanwhile, Trump — whose 2017 Tax Cuts and Job Act that cut the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent was among his administration’s flagship legislative achievements — has floated the idea of slashing the corporate tax rate even further, to as low as 15 per cent, if he were given another four years in office.
Trump, a former real estate executive and host of the reality TV show The Apprentice, has long enjoyed an edge with voters when it comes to the economy. But recent polling suggests Harris may be erasing his advantage on the central voting issue.
A poll conducted last month for the Financial Times and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business showed Harris with a razor-thin lead over Trump when it comes to the economy, with 42 per cent of voters saying they trusted her more to handle the economy, compared to 41 per cent who put their faith in the former president.
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