The Hill: Harris’s economic pitch could cost $1.7 trillion

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ipatent

Harris’s economic pitch could cost $1.7 trillion: analysis

Vice President Harris’s recent proposals laid out as part of her Agenda to Lower Costs for American Families could increase the nation’s deficits by $1.7 trillion over a decade, a new analysis finds, although the campaign is vowing offsets through taxes on the rich.

Harris unveiled several proposals on Friday as part of her agenda for the economy if she wins the presidency later this year, including a measure that would beef up the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to provide a $6,000 tax cut to families with newborn children.

The plan also calls for the restoration of an expansion to the CTC that was passed as part of a sweeping coronavirus relief package in 2021 known as the American Rescue Plan, pressing for up to $3,600 per child tax credit for some families.

In an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) released later on Friday, the group estimated Harris’s proposals to expand the CTC could come with a price tag of $1.2 trillion from fiscal year 2026 to 2035.

Other measures proposed in the plan that would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), set up a tax credit for first-time homebuyers, extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credit expansion and efforts to support affordable housing, could cost upwards of $700 billion during the same time frame, CRFB noted.
 
Spend money to make money. Beats making Jeff Bezos just a tiny bit richer.

You want more smart babies to be workers? Child tax credits help this a lot. Makes little difference to low income people who are already paying almost no tax.

 
ipatent said:
Harris’s economic pitch could cost $1.7 trillion: analysis

Vice President Harris’s recent proposals laid out as part of her Agenda to Lower Costs for American Families could increase the nation’s deficits by $1.7 trillion over a decade, a new analysis finds, although the campaign is vowing offsets through taxes on the rich.

Harris unveiled several proposals on Friday as part of her agenda for the economy if she wins the presidency later this year, including a measure that would beef up the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to provide a $6,000 tax cut to families with newborn children.

The plan also calls for the restoration of an expansion to the CTC that was passed as part of a sweeping coronavirus relief package in 2021 known as the American Rescue Plan, pressing for up to $3,600 per child tax credit for some families.

In an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) released later on Friday, the group estimated Harris’s proposals to expand the CTC could come with a price tag of $1.2 trillion from fiscal year 2026 to 2035.

Other measures proposed in the plan that would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), set up a tax credit for first-time homebuyers, extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credit expansion and efforts to support affordable housing, could cost upwards of $700 billion during the same time frame, CRFB noted.
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Different federal budget watchdog and lobbyist groups will come up with a range of figures that will all vary. I do agree that the proposals that Kamala Harris outlined will be pricey. Where is she going to get the money? Higher taxes? More borrowing? It's obvious she is not cutting in other areas to free up money.

At least the Democratic candidate for President has some concrete proposals; the Trump campaign basically had nothing except the nonsense which spews out of Donald's mouth.
 
Just like no tax on tips which she will have to walk back some as was pointed out, these taxes give young workers years of social security contributions.

Not an issue for MAGA as they don't give a shit. They will be buried before that's a problem.

But it's going to be fine.
 
Let's see what the Washington Post's Editorial Board thinks of Kamala's economic plan.

The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks.
‘Price gouging’ is not causing inflation. So why is the vice president promising to stamp it out?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/16/harris-economy-plan-gimmicks/?_pml=1

Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech Friday was an opportunity to get specific with voters about how a Harris presidency would manage an economy that many feel is not working well for them. Unfortunately, instead of delivering a substantial plan, she squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.

Americans are clearly still anxious and angry about the high cost of groceries, housing and even $5.29 Big Macs. While the inflation rate has cooled substantially since the 2022 peak, an ostensible Biden-Harris administration accomplishment, prices remain elevated relative to the Trump years. So it’s a real political issue for Ms. Harris. One way to handle it might be to level with voters, telling them that inflation spiked in 2021 mainly because the pandemic snarled supply chains, and that the Federal Reserve’s policies, which the Biden-Harris administration supported, are working to slow it. The vice president instead opted for a less forthright route: Blaming big business. She vowed to go after “price gouging” by grocery stores, landlords, pharmaceutical companies and other supposed corporate perpetrators by having the Federal Trade Commission enforce a vaguely defined “federal ban on price gouging.”

Price-increases-under-Biden.jpg


Never mind that many stores are currently slashing prices in response to renewed consumer bargain hunting. Ms. Harris says she’ll target companies that make “excessive” profits, whatever that means. (It’s hard to see how groceries, a notoriously low-margin business, would qualify.) Thankfully, this gambit by Ms. Harris has been met with almost instant skepticism, with many critics citing President Richard M. Nixon’s failed price controls from the 1970s. Whether the Harris proposal wins over voters remains to be seen, but if sound economic analysis still matters, it won’t.

Ms. Harris’s housing plan is built on a slightly firmer foundation. In urging construction of 3 million new homes over the next four years,she puts her finger on the essence of the housing-affordability problem: insufficient supply. She offers clever tax incentives to help make it happen. But her proposed $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers stimulates the demand side, which risks putting upward pressure on prices. Such a measure might make sense if Ms. Harris paid for it by eliminating other demand-side housing subsidies, such as the mortgage interest deduction, a roughly $30 billion annual drain on federal revenue that benefits many wealthy Americans — but she does not.

Ms. Harris is on firmest ground when she advocates increasing the child tax credit from the current level of $2,000 per kid up to $3,600 per kid for middle-class and low-income families, and for making it easier for those lower on the income scale to access the benefit. These levels were in place in 2021 and resulted in many families being lifted above the poverty line. Assuming it’s designed with appropriate work incentives, the child tax credit can be highly effective anti-poverty policy. Ms. Harris also suggested expanding the earned income tax credit for childless low-income “front-line workers,” a smart idea that has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress. She would extend beyond 2025 tax breaks to help Americans of modest means afford to buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces; those tax breaks are part of the reason more than 92 percent of Americans have health insurance now. She also wants to expand the government’s limited power to negotiate Medicare drug prices and permanently cap out-of-pocket drug spending at $2,000 per year for everyone.

Her ideas would cost money, yet she insisted in her speech that she would hold to President Joe Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on any household earning $400,000 or less annually. That excludes 80 percent of taxable income, and does not take into account the recent surge in families earning over $400,000. The Harris campaign says it plans to raise revenue to cover these costs but did not provide specific offsets in its economic plan rollout. Without them, Ms. Harris’s full plan would add $1.7 trillion to federal deficits over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan budget watchdog.

To be sure, every campaign makes expensive promises that will never come to pass, especially with a divided Congress. Remember Mr. Biden’s pledge to make community college free? Even adjusted for the pandering standards of campaign economics, however, Ms. Harris’s speech Friday ranks as a disappointment.
 
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