Kamala's Economic Policies Explained: What they could mean for you

In any race for public office, especially in the United States, sometimes it feels that you're voting for the lesser of two evils. However, Kamala Harris' policies are beneficial for the American public in making America a more fair and equal society. To all Americans who believe that they have not heard enough about the economy from Kamala's side, this article will serve as an expository article on her policy proposals to date.

Big Corporations can suck it

During her time as Attorney-General of California, she took on the big banks during the '08 Financial Crisis that was the worst of its kind since the Great Depression and she got USD 20 Billion to give back to the Californian people who have been evicted from their rented in the wake of the crisis. Now, in her capacity as a Presidential nominee, she will take on the large corporations again to bring down inflation.

There is reason to believe that the gross increase in prices at the grocery store are the effect of large corporations price gouge consumers for extra profit under the pretense of "inflation". A President Harris will called them out on their bullshit by fighting for a federal ban on price gouging to basically prevent this from happening in the United States. However, this is not yet properly fleshed out yet but it is an incredibly good start at tackling the inflationary pressure that American households face today.

Tax hikes for the wealthy

According to an article published by Investopedia in September, 9 of the top 10 billionaires are American with the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg being included in the 9. Meanwhile, there are still many Americans living in abject poverty and are struggling to survive every day that passes. In a Harris administration, she wants equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of socio-economic status, but these programmes that will be explained later are not without cost or is it cheap.

Hence, Harris will hike long-term capital gains tax rate to 28%, an increase from the current 20% for those earning over a Million dollars annually while also imposing a 25% tax on unrealized stock gains on households of American society that have a valuation of anything north of USD 100 Million in net worth. She would also quadruple the tax on stock buybacks to 4%.

Although most of these ideas came from President Biden's 2025 budget proposal, which is estimated to rake in about USD5 Trillion extra, she mostly seems to agree with that and I think that it is a platform that we can all get behind. This tax hike that she is supporting is no small feat as this tax plan that she is supporting will actually bring in more revenue than the current revenue that the Internal Revenue Service collected for the United States Budget 2024 (USD 4.8 Trillion).

Obamacare

Part of this new funding will be put into funding the Affordable Care Act (affectionately named Obamacare) to extending the premium subsidies that were made available from the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act which has seen record level signups from the American public. She would also want to extend the benefit of USD 35 monthly cap on insulin and USD 2000 annual limit for prescription medication to be available for all Americans, not just those on Medicare [as stipulated in the Inflation Reduction Act].

The Biden Administration, last month, announced that the result of the first round of negotiations with drug companies expects USD 6 Billion in savings for Medicare and USD 1.5 Billion in savings for senior citizens when the lower prices come into effect in 2026, and Harris will build on that. She would probably pour in cash to cancel medical debt for Millions of Americans to stop them from, essentially, bankrupting themselves just because they sought out the healthcare they desperately needed.

Aid for small businesses, not the wealthy

Another part of the new funding will probably be to help new small businesses spring up. It might be a little-known fact but small businesses who have 500 or less employees, not large corporations, actually fuel the economy of the United States by actually employing 99.7% of all employees in the United States according to the United States Small Business Association and reported by Forbes. In 2019, the Small Business Association reported that small businesses accounted for 44% of the United States Economic Activity - a large proportion indeed.

Of all the 20.6 million new jobs created between 1995 and 2020, 61.6% of them have come from Small Businesses - and Kamala understands this. Kamala understands that small businesses actually help local communities through employment and taxes to improve the standard of living locally. In fact, a small business is allowing people to live out the American dream.

In light of this, she has announced on Wednesday that she would expand the tax deduction to up to USD 50 Thousand, an increase of ten times the current tax deduction (USD 5 Thousand) and she will allow those businesses to wait to generate a profit for a year before claiming it to ensure that the local mom-and-pop store receive the full benefit of her plan. She plans to do this as she has seen the data, and the data shows that it takes about USD 40 Thousand to set up and launch a small enterprise. Her target? Set up a record 25 Million new small businesses up from an already impressive record high of 19 Million under President Joe Biden's tenure. To have a stronger economy as the United States, small businesses must thrive and this is front and centre in Harris' mind for the economy.

Additionally, Harris wants to make it easier for small business owners to operate by cutting red tape. She wants to make interstate business easier to do and to ensure that a third of federal contract dollars goes to small businesses. To put this into perspective, the United States government in the fiscal year of 2022 committed USD 694 Billion on federal contracts. If Harris ran on the same platform as she was doing now and was presiding over the 2022 budget, she would have allocated slightly north of USD 231 Billion given to small businesses.

Parents get tax deductions

Child Poverty in America is a serious issue, no doubt about that. When children are in abject poverty, it means that families are struggling. Struggling to put food on the table, struggling to give their kids a good quality of life and struggling to ensure that their kids have a good future. Under the bi-partisan American Rescue Plan, child tax credits were increased to USD 3600 from USD 2000 which was only in effect in 2021 and that cut child poverty in half that year.

Kamala will extend the tax credit in the American Rescue Plan to being made permanent. She's also called for an additional tax credit of up to USD 6000 for low and middle income earners for the first year of the child's life. It is expected to cost the federal government about USD 1.2 Trillion for the whole plan, but this will increase federal support for those who want to raise a family in the United States.

What do Economists say?

According to Moody's who scrutinized both presidential hopeful's plans for the economy, Harris' plan would lower inflation, lower unemployment, cut the deficit with strong economic growth and more jobs. This would ultimately lead into more and more revenue for the Democrat's plan while Trump's plan might increase inflation due to his high tariffs policy, create suffering industries in America and even add to the deficit due to his policy of giving tax cuts to his wealthy business friends.

Conclusion

Although Harris' has not fully released what she wants to do about the economy and how she will tackle the bread-and-butter issues that Americans face today in full depth and detail, this is indeed a good start into actually turning the United States into a more equitable society with opportunities to succeed for all members of society, not just the few. If you want these policies to come to pass, you know which party to vote for this November.