Harris’ production plan seeks to draw business support away from Trump

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to announce new campaign proposals focused on improving US manufacturing in a speech Wednesday at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, according to a senior campaign official.

These proposals are part of efforts to establish Harris as a partner, not someone who opposes businessmen, said the official, whose name has been withheld in order to speak freely about the speech that has not yet reached the public.

Harris’ speech will outline a “practical” economic philosophy focused on capitalism, innovation and an understanding of the limits of government, rather than being “bound by ideology,” the official said.

The vice president will try to present his openness to the private sector as a way to grow the middle class, which is now the core of his emerging economic platform.

The speech will come in direct opposition to an attack by Harris’ Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, who has worked to describe the former California senator as a “hard left Democrat” and a threat to the US economy.

“If Kamala Harris gets four more years, she’s going to deindustrialize the United States and destroy our country,” Trump said at an event in Savannah, Ga. on Tuesday, where he also presented new production proposals.

In his speech in Georgia, Trump said if elected to a second term, he would introduce an expanded tax credit for research and development costs, appoint a special “manufacturing ambassador” and impose a strong tax on imports, which he said would encourage domestic manufacturing. .

In his speech Wednesday, Harris also plans to highlight his middle-class upbringing and his political resume, a campaign official said.

He will highlight his two goals as California Attorney General, where he works with companies to manage privacy concerns about early mobile apps. Harris will also use his role as vice president to bring more capital to community banks and small businesses.

In his 8-week-old presidential campaign, Harris’s economic stance has meshed well with President Joe Biden’s agenda.

Harris focused on reducing the cost of food, housing and child care, in part by accusing corporate America of “price gouging,” or manipulating and raising consumer prices to far exceed producers’ costs, leading to rising profit margins unrelated to production.

In August, Harris even proposed a government ban on so-called price fixing in the food and beverage sectors.

But that view is echoed by economists from across the political spectrum, who argue that there is little evidence to suggest that corporate price-fixing is the main cause of higher prices.

In the past few weeks, Harris has softened his rhetoric on corporate America.

Last Wednesday, for example, in his speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Harris criticized price gouging, but quickly clarified that only a small number of companies participate in it.

“Some companies, and there are very few of them, do this, but they raise prices to make it harder for desperate people to get by,” Harris said.

Wednesday’s speech could be the latest step in Harris’s shift in tone, with less of a business bashing of Biden, and his industrial policy goals.

The campaign official noted, however, that Harris would also make it clear that he is “not afraid to hold bad actors accountable if necessary.”

With Election Day just 41 days away and voters in several states already voting early, the Harris campaign sees his speech in Pittsburgh as an opportunity to further chip away at Trump’s long-standing rift with voters on the economy.

Recent polls suggest that Harris’ efforts in this regard are already bearing fruit.

A Financial Times-Michigan Ross September poll of 1,002 registered voters found Harris with a narrow 2 percentage point lead over Trump on the economy.

The poll was taken two days after the first Harris-Trump presidential debate on September 10

Harris’ narrow two-point margin was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, but it showed that Harris caught up to his Republican opponent.

Several other high-profile polls conducted after the debate show Harris trailing Trump’s economic gains by double digits, including those from AP-NORC, NBC News and Fox News.