Harris unveils an economic plan focused on housing and grocery prices : NPR

Vice President Harris is set to unveil an economic plan on Friday that will focus on the high cost of housing and groceries — top-of-mind expenses for voters pinched by years of rising prices.

In Raleigh, N.C., Harris will give the first major policy address of her campaign. It’s a city where her campaign is highlighting innovative affordable housing developments — in a state that Democrats are trying to win the presidential race for the first time since 2008.

Polls have shown Biden has struggled to get credit for his efforts to lower prices and many voters continue to trust Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump more on the economy — but polls also show that voters are less critical of Harris on economic issues.

“While our economy is doing well by many measures, prices for everyday things like groceries are still too high. You know it and I know it,” Harris said on the campaign trail in Las Vegas on Aug. 10.

On Friday, Harris will announce a proposal for tax breaks that her campaign said would lead to 3 million new housing units in four years, going beyond a Biden White House proposal to ease housing shortages with 2 million new and renovated homes.

Harris’ plan would give unspecified tax incentives to homebuilders for houses geared to first-time buyers and for affordable rental housing. She would propose a $40 billion fund to help local governments finance developments, up from a $20 billion proposal from the Biden White House. Like all spending, these proposals would depend on Congress being willing to fund them.

Harris would ask Congress to give first-time homeowners up to $25,000 toward their down payments — a plan that her campaign said could help more than 4 million first-time buyers. That is more generous than a plan Biden announced in this year’s State of the Union address that would have given first-time homebuyers a $10,000 tax credit, and help about 400,000 first-generation homebuyers with down-payment assistance.

A homebuilder advertises in a Petaluma, Calif., development on May 2, 2024.

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Harris would crack down on corporations, her campaign says

Harris will argue that corporations are making too much money from consumers as she lays out her economic priorities. It’s a theme she has foreshadowed on the campaign trail, noting her work on price-fixing when she was California’s attorney general.

“When I am president, it will be my Day One priority to fight to bring down prices, to take on the big corporations that engage in illegal price gouging, take on corporate landlords that unfairly raise rents on working families; to take on Big Pharma and cap the cost of prescription drugs for all Americans,” she said in an Aug. 7 speech in Detroit.

Harris and Biden gave campaign-style remarks on Thursday about their efforts to lower prescription drug prices for people on Medicare — a moment where Harris sought to show she was involved in a policy that polls show is popular, but for which Biden has received little credit.

Her campaign said Harris would back legislation proposed by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, to restrict tax breaks for corporate investors that buy up homes, as well as a bill proposed by Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would ban rental property owners from buying algorithmic data that helps them hike rent prices.

When it comes to grocery prices, Harris will call for a federal ban on price gouging in the food sector. She will focus on meat prices in particular, blaming the concentrated meat processing sector for driving up grocery prices, and she will pledge that her administration would more aggressively investigate and prosecute price-fixing in the meat supply chain.

This proposal is similar to an approach taken by the Biden administration, which said in Sept. 2021 that it would crack down on price fixing and enforce antitrust laws in the meat sector, as well as provide funding to smaller players to try to boost competition.

Harris’ plan would give the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the authority to investigate corporations and impose penalties, her campaign said. Many large retailers have kept grocery prices high instead of passing savings along to consumers, Harris is set to say.

In her speech, she will say that her administration would scrutinize proposed mergers in the food sector to assess the risk that a merger would result in higher grocery prices.