Harris, Trump Tout Vastly Different Visions for Economy In Week of Campaign Stops

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris laid out her economic vision during a speech before business leaders in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, encouraging them to join in an “active partnership” to create an “opportunity economy” in which costs will be lower, investments in the industries of the future will grow, and the working and middle classes will flourish.

“I am a capitalist. I believe in free and fair markets,” Harris said during a speech at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh.

“The American economy is the most powerful force for innovation and wealth creation in human history. We just need to move beyond the failed policies of the past,” she said at another point in her most extensive comments on the economy of her presidential campaign.

“Like generations before us,” Harris continued. “We need to be inspired by what’s possible.”

And she said while the approach to the economy by a Harris administration will be one “grounded” in the fundamental value of fairness, she also intended to borrow a page from President Franklin D. Roosevelt and engage in “bold, persistent experimentation.”

“I believe we shouldn’t be constrained by ideology,” the vice president said, adding that if she does succeed in her bid for the White House, she would be “pragmatic” in her approach to all things business and economy related.

“We should seek practical solutions to problems,” Harris said. “And realistic assessments of what’s working and what’s not.”

She also said the White House and the business community need to “stay focused.”

“Not only on the crises at hand, but on our big goals. On what’s best for America over the long term,” she said.

Harris also used her 40-minute speech to draw a sharp contrast between herself and former President Donald Trump, who in his standard stump speech has portrayed the nation as being in dire financial condition despite the fact economic growth remains strong and the stock market has continued to reach new heights.

She also insisted Trump is more focused on the wealthiest of Americans, and “has no intention of growing our middle class.”

“For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers.

“Not those who build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors,” Harris said.

“Donald Trump … is only interested in making life better for himself. And people like himself. The wealthiest of Americans,” she continued. “You can see it spelled out in his economic agenda.”

She went on to describe that agenda as one that “gives trillions of dollars in tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations. While raising taxes on the middle class by almost $4,000 a year. Slashing overtime pay. Throwing tens of millions of Americans off health care. And cutting Social Security and Medicare.”

“In sum, his agenda would weaken the economy and hurt working- and middle-class people,” Harris said. “Donald Trump intends to take America backward. To the failed policies of the past.”

Harris’ remarks inspired a swift response from Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the Trump campaign.

“Kamala Harris is right about one thing — it’s time to turn the page,” Leavitt said. 

“Personal savings are down, credit card debt is up, small business optimism is at a record low, and people are struggling to afford homes, groceries and gas,” she continued. “Every time Kamala speaks, it becomes increasingly clear that only President Trump will make America wealthy again.”

Trump, of course, has also been talking about his plans for the economy. In campaign appearances in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Savannah, Georgia, and Mint Hill, North Carolina, the former president repeatedly vowed to give tax cuts to companies that manufacture in America and impose tariffs on those that do not.

Such an approach, he said, would usher in a “new American industrialism” if he were to win a second term in the White House.

“American workers will no longer be worried about losing their jobs to foreign nations. Instead, foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America,” he said.

“Vote for Trump, and you will see a mass exodus of manufacturing from China to Pennsylvania, from Korea to North Carolina, from Germany to right here in Georgia,” he added during his Savannah stop.

On Monday, Trump attacked John Deere, the Moline, Illinois-based agricultural machinery giant, over its plan to move some of its production to Mexico.

“I’m just notifying John Deere right now: If you do that [shift production to Mexico], we’re putting a 200% tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States,” he said during his campaign stop in Pennsylvania.

Trump expanded on his economic message in Georgia, telling rally attendees that he plans to reduce the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% for companies that produce goods domestically, and that he would eliminate regulations while also boosting energy production.

Trump has also threatened to impose up to 20% on tariffs on all imports and even higher duties on China. 

“We will take in hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said in Mint Hill.

A number of economists have warned that Trump’s tax and tariff plans could cause a sharp increase in the nation’s inflation rate, which dropped to 2.5% in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is in part because any tariff increases would raise production costs for any domestic manufacturers who rely on foreign components to make their products. These costs would then be passed on to American consumers.

In Savannah, Trump vowed that under his leadership, “we’re going to take other country’s jobs” and in the process inspire “a manufacturing renaissance.”

“Here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth,” he said. “I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.

“It all goes away if you don’t make your product here and hire American workers for the job. If you don’t make your product here, then you will have to pay a tariff, a very substantial tariff when you send your product into the United States,” Trump said.

In an exclusive interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle following her speech in Pittsburgh, Harris dismissed Trump’s claims that his policies would be good for the economy, saying in the end they’d amount to nothing more than an additional sales tax on the American people.

“Independent economists have already measured [the impact] of doing a 20% tariff on all imports that he has described, and said it would be a 20% sales tax, in essence, on basic necessities for the average American worker, average American family, totaling almost $4,000 a year. That is no small matter. … People can’t afford that.”

Harris also said it’s simply wrong to “throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board.”

“That’s part of the problem with Donald Trump. Frankly, and I say this in all sincerity, he’s just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues,” she said.

“One must be serious and have a plan and a real plan that’s not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally, but actually putting the thought into what will be the return on the investment, what will be the economic impact on everyday people,” Harris said.

During her remarks before the Economic Club, Harris also sought to distinguish herself from Trump in other ways, particularly by talking about her middle-class roots.

“I understand the pressures of making ends meet,” she said. “I grew up in a middle-class family.

“And while we were more fortunate than many, I still remember my mother sitting at that yellow Formica table. Late at night. Cup of tea in hand. A pile of bills in front of her. Trying to make sure she paid them off by the end of the month. Trying to make it all work,” she continued.

“Every day, millions of Americans are sitting around their own kitchen tables. And facing their own financial pressures because over the past several decades, our economy has grown better and better for those at the very top, and increasingly difficult for those trying to attain, build and hold on to a middle-class life,” she said.

“In many ways, that is what this election is about. The American people face a choice between two fundamentally different paths for our economy. I want to chart a new way forward and grow America’s middle class,” Harris added. 

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