Where do Trump and Harris stand on key issues?
More campaign activity between Trump and Harris is expected in the coming weeks, with Election Day just three weeks away from Tuesday. Both candidates have made significant promises throughout their campaigns. FOX 5 NY’s Sharon Crowley takes a closer look at what they’re saying on some important issues.
NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) – With Election Day 2024 just around the corner, we look at what voters need to know about presidential candidates’ stances on important issues.
Jump to: Economy l Immigration l Abortion l Housing
Opinion polls show a narrow margin in the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
But where do each candidate stand on some important issues like the economy, immigration, abortion, and housing?
The Vice President’s positions on key topics are as follows:
Check out real-time race results on Election Day here!
Harris announced a series of economic proposals that include building more housing, cutting taxes, lowering the cost of groceries and other basic human needs.
As housing cost issues impact the nation, the vice president has released a new ad reinforcing plans to build 3 million new homes over four years to combat inflationary pressures.
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Harris also proposed that the government provide $25,000 in support to first-time home buyers.
The vice president’s plan would create tax breaks for home builders, especially first-time buyers, and expand existing incentives for companies that build rental homes, according to the Associated Press.
The Associated Press reports that Harris will double available funding to $40 billion to encourage local governments to remove regulations that prevent additional construction as local zoning limits the supply of housing. Ta.
inflation
The vice president promoted a plan to ban the federal government from price gouging by food producers and grocery stores. She touted it during a North Carolina rally on Aug. 16 as part of an overall economic package to ease inflation and lower the cost of living.
Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at CNN Presidential Town Hall at Sun Center Studios in Aston, Pennsylvania on October 23, 2024. With less than two weeks until Election Day, Harris spent the day in Philad.
Harris’ food pricing proposal would direct the Federal Trade Commission to punish “large corporations” responsible for price gouging, and blames a lack of competition in the meat packaging industry for soaring meat prices.
Consumer prices rose just 2.4% in September compared to the same month last year, down from the 2.5% rise in August and the lowest annual rate of increase since February 2021. Measured monthly, prices rose 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department said Thursday. Same as last month.
wages
Harris called for raising the minimum wage in a speech in Las Vegas in early August, but her campaign has not said how much she believes the minimum wage should be raised.
The vice president, like President Trump, has pledged to work to eliminate taxes on tips paid to restaurant and other service industry workers.
Vice President Kamala Harris stands on stage to speak at a presidential campaign rally at the Oakland Expo Center in Waterford, Michigan on October 18, 2024. (Photo by Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu, Getty (From Images)
Harris’ campaign told The Associated Press that if elected president, Harris will work with Congress to implement income limits and other provisions to prevent hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation to take advantage of the policy. He said he intends to draft a proposal that incorporates the following. . Harris will also push the proposal alongside a proposal to increase the federal minimum wage.
tax
Harris has promised tax cuts for more than 100 million working and middle-class households. According to Harris’ campaign website, she plans to do this by restoring the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, two tax cuts aimed at helping middle-class and working Americans. That’s what it means.
The vice president wants to make the child tax credit permanent. This would give families up to $3,600 per child and provide new parents with a special $6,000 tax credit. Harris said her administration would expand tax credits for first-time homebuyers and push to build 3 million new homes over four years, while eliminating the tax on tips and supporting tax breaks for entrepreneurs. .
Harris also wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% and the corporate minimum tax to 21%, according to the Associated Press. The current corporate tax rate is 21%, and the minimum corporate tax rate increased under the Inflation Control Act to 15% for companies with annual sales of more than $1 billion. But Harris did not intend to raise capital gains taxes as much as President Joe Biden had proposed for investors with incomes over $1 million.
social security
If lawmakers don’t want millions of Americans to see their benefits automatically cut by 17% over 11 years, they essentially have two choices: Pay more or receive less. is.
Harris has not indicated any plans to address Social Security since becoming a candidate, but Democrats have proposed raising Social Security taxes on the wealthiest Americans to make up for the shortfall.
Americans pay Social Security taxes on income up to $168,000 per year. Anything earned above that amount is not subject to Social Security taxes.
The House bill, which Harris announced she would support in March 2023, would raise Social Security taxes only for people making more than $400,000 a year.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at Washington Crossing Historical Park in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, USA on October 16, 2024. (Photo by Nathan Morris)
As a senator, she supported a similar measure under the Social Security Expansion Act, which calls for raising Social Security taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year.
The Social Security Expansion Act, which Harris supported, would also change the way Social Security benefits are calculated. Currently, the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is based on the CPI-W and tracks monthly price changes for goods and services for urban wage earners and office workers.
Lawmakers have proposed using the CPI-E, which measures price changes based on the spending patterns of Americans 62 and older. Democrats say it would increase benefits for millions of older Americans and give them a better picture of how they spend their money, with an emphasis on things like prescription drug costs. claims.
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare endorsed Harris as a presidential candidate in a July 24 blog post.
“As vice president, she has championed the administration’s policies on behalf of older Americans, including strengthening Social Security and Medicare and lowering prescription drug prices for seniors,” the committee said on its website. .
Harris has not provided many details about how she plans to deal with the border crisis.
She previously pushed for a border security bill negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators earlier this year, but ultimately opposed en masse by Republicans at the behest of Republican candidate Donald Trump.
During the Democratic National Convention, Harris said she would push for the bill again.
“As president, I will reinstate the bipartisan border security bill he rejected and sign it into law,” she said. “I know we can uphold our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can earn a path to citizenship and secure our borders. can.”
Harris also wants faster immigration enforcement for young immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.
The border bill was one of the most conservative and comprehensive proposals in decades to emerge from bipartisan negotiations in Congress. By making asylum procedures stricter and faster, it would seek to curb historic numbers of illegal border crossings.
The presidential administration would also have the power to deny asylum applications at the border if the number of migrants applying for asylum becomes unmanageable by authorities.
How does Harris view the border crisis?
Harris took several progressive positions on immigration during her bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. She wanted to make immigrants who entered the country illegally eligible for government health care and to decriminalize border crossings.
When Harris became Biden’s vice president, the administration dismantled some of Trump’s toughest immigration policies, and Harris worked to improve conditions in Central American countries to reduce the flow of immigrants into the United States. But illegal crossings have reached historic levels, creating a political crisis for the White House. Republicans have accused Harris of failing to secure the border.
The vice president has made abortion rights a cornerstone of his campaign, urging Congress to pass legislation that would guarantee nationwide access to abortion, which had existed as a right for nearly 50 years before being overturned by the Supreme Court.
Like Biden, Harris has criticized abortion bans in Republican-controlled states and vowed that as president she would block a potential nationwide ban if passed by a future Republican-run Congress. did.
Harris was the Democratic Party’s most visible defender of abortion rights while Biden was still in the race. She has promoted government initiatives that go beyond federal law. These include measures to protect women traveling for surgery and limit how law enforcement can collect medical records.
Harris’ campaign has emphasized three key aspects of the housing policy she wants to enact. LendingTree said that, broadly speaking, these policies are aimed at lowering housing costs while increasing housing supply.
Build 3 million homes in the next four years
Harris proposes building 3 million homes over the next four years. At this time, there are no details on where these homes will be built or whether additional units will be added to construction already in place. The Harris administration is also proposing “first-ever tax incentives for home builders who build starter homes for sale to first-time homebuyers.” The details of this tax break are unclear, but it could help builders tackle costs associated with new construction.
Tighten regulations on large corporate landlords to lower rents
The Harris administration will ask Congress to pass two pieces of legislation: the Stop Predatory Investment Act and the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act. The Predatory Investment Prevention Act denies interest tax and depreciation deductions to taxpayers who own 50 or more single-family properties. On the other hand, the “Rental Housing Cartel Algorithmic Facilitation Prevention Act” aims to make it illegal for landlords to use rent price data shared by third parties to raise rents.
Give first-time homebuyers up to $25,000 as a down payment on a home.
According to the Harris campaign, the new administration will provide “down payment assistance of up to $25,000 to working families buying their first home after two years of on-time rent payments.” Although the campaign does not specify the specific form of aid, similar proposals tend to allocate aid as subsidies.
The FOX digital team and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
