The new presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party carries a long paper trail in tax policy. That history may alter the debate in a pivotal election ahead of a looming deadline next year.
President Joe Biden's decision to leave the race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris sets her up to be the party's nominee. This will lead to greater examination of Harris' record in her current role, as well as her 2019 candidacy, her time as a senator from California between 2017 and 2021 and her tenure as the state's attorney general for a half dozen years. It's not clear whether any Democrats will challenge Harris, who said in a statement that her "intention is to earn and win this nomination."
Harris has called for significant changes in tax policy — in some cases more far-reaching than Biden's plans — and promoted infrastructural projects that received funding through the Inflation Reduction Act. In recent months, she traveled to several states as part of an "economic opportunity tour," with stops like one in Atlanta for the 100 Black Men of America conference in June.
"It's not about a handout. It's about giving people the opportunity to compete," she said in a discussion about the long-term impact of the Biden administration's investments, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. "Give hardworking people the opportunity to get ahead — and not just get by."
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Regardless, Republicans led by their nominee, former President Donald Trump, are likely to slam Harris' tax proposals in much the same way that they criticized Biden's plans as a potential increased burden on households, stifling economic growth.
"Over the last four years she cosigned Biden's open border and green scam policies that drove up the cost of housing and groceries," Trump's vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, said after Biden endorsed Harris, CNN reported. "She owns all of these failures."
The debate on the economy and taxes carries added importance in this election, since many provisions of the legislation that Republicans passed and Trump signed into law, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, will expire in 2026 if Congress fails to take action. With most legislation reaching a standstill in an election year, that deadline could result in any number of scenarios that depend on which party controls the White House and Congress and almost certainly won't lead to anyone's plans turning wholesale into law. The conventional wisdom holds that Harris will pursue a nearly identical course as Biden.
"A Harris presidency would be, for all intents and purposes, a continuation of the Biden administration," Isaac Boltansky, the director of policy research at global financial services firm BTIG, told MarketWatch earlier this month.
Harris "is solidly in the mainstream of the Democratic Party, which has rallied in recent years around Robin Hood-style tax plans that would increase levies on high earners in order to finance expanded breaks for those further down the income ladder," a Politico analysis said on Sunday. At a campaign stop last week in North Carolina, the vice president drew a contrast between the expanded child tax credit during the Biden administration and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the same publication reported.
"Pull up the split screen," Harris said. "Whereas the last administration gave tax cuts to billionaires, we gave tax cuts to families through the Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty in America by half."
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Still, past proposals from Harris add up to a slightly different vision than that of Biden — whose tax blueprints often revolved around his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. Harris' plans focused on a lower income: $100,000.
As a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, Harris was asked about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and said that she would "get rid of the whole thing," with the exception of provisions benefiting taxpayers earning less than $100,000 per year, the publication Tax Notes reported.
Her "Medicare for All" plan in health care included a financial transaction tax and a 4% duty described as an "income-based premium" on households with at least $100,000, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation noted in a 2020 report after Biden named her as his running mate.
The "LIFT (Livable Incomes for Families Today) the Middle Class Act" legislation that she proposed as a senator would have provided yearly tax credits of up to $3,000 for individual taxpayers and $6,000 for joint filers with incomes of up to $100,000, the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center said in analysis of the bill in 2018 and 2020.
In addition, her "Rent Relief Act" would have given tenants with lower than $100,000 in income a refundable tax credit to get back any housing costs that exceed 30% of their earnings, The New York Times reported.
Other Harris proposals have included raising the corporate tax rate to 35% from 21%, hiking estate duties on the wealthy to pay for a salary increase for public school teachers and a plan to promote homeownership in historically excluded communities through an investment of $100 billion in grants and housing programs.
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In an interview with Bloomberg News earlier this month, Trump said that Harris would bring "substantially higher taxes both to individuals and to businesses, especially small businesses" and draw many of the same condemnations as those he has thrown at Biden.
"I don't think it would make much difference. I see the same basic level of competence," Trump said. "I would define her in a very similar matter that I define him."
