In a speech she delivered three years ago, Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized goals to use federal funds to make caregivers’ lives simpler as part of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better program.
During a virtual town hall in October 2021, she stated, “Investments in care have dropped to the bottom of the priority list” due to a lengthy period of neglect. Care must take first, so let’s pass our agenda and ensure that companies pay their due amount.
Democratic legislation that sought to decrease prescription medicine prices and increase sustainable energy did not include those elements, as history would show.
The late entrance of Harris into the presidential race has given that vision a fresh surge of energy, and her 2021 presentation provides a glimpse into her prospective economic agenda if she were to inherit the office.
New America’s longstanding healthcare policy advocate Vicki Shabo said, “I think she will prioritize these issues in a more authentic and enthusiastic way than we’ve seen before.” Think tank New America leans left.
This might be a major differentiator between Harris and President Joe Biden. Low unemployment and increasing salaries were central to Biden’s campaign rhetoric, which he used to reassure voters that the economy is doing OK. Despite acknowledging that people are still dealing with an affordability crisis, he decided to spend very little time discussing what additional needed to be done over the next four years.
In the dismal debate that destroyed Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, neither Donald Trump nor Biden addressed the issue of how to lower the cost of child care.
That is not to suggest that the White House did not have intentions on care issues, housing, and universal pre-K, among others. However, few voters would bother to look for it in the president’s proposed budget.
Although the VP hasn’t taken the lead on economic matters, she has been an outspoken supporter of paid family and medical leave since her time in the Senate began.
In addition to calling for increased financing for child care centers, she has been an outspoken supporter of the administration’s efforts to strengthen the child tax credit, which was expanded during the epidemic and has since helped reduce child poverty significantly. All of these initiatives were mentioned, notably in her appeal to teachers, in her first public appearances since Sunday, when her candidacy began.
All of these things contribute to what the Biden administration is calling “the care economy,” which is the informal sector that provides essential support to disadvantaged groups, such as children and the elderly, often without compensation.
Having a president with a soft spot for these causes could jolt the political climate and give these initiatives a better shot at passing Congress, even though it’s highly unlikely that any initiative will do so. This is especially true given the increasing pressure on elected officials to raise taxes on some voters to cover new spending.
The idea of lowering the cost of child care has a macroeconomic basis. Nearly 40% of moms who are unemployed during their prime working years cited child care obligations as a reason for not having a paying job, according to a Federal Reserve annual study. This means that there is a shortage of workers.
However, when Harris speaks, it is usually not in broad strokes.
Since she has never truly stated a broad policy vision, it is difficult to predict her future stances on any particular subject based on the various positions she has taken.
According to Harris’s supporters, her approach is not to overhaul the entire system but to seek out specific answers to the difficulties that individuals, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds, encounter.
It’s in sharp contrast to Trump, who has more economic policy passion than any president in the 21st century and frequently discusses ideas like slapping a 10% tariff on all imported goods or further reducing the corporate tax rate.
Harris is more interested in the finer points of a problem and has been an outspoken supporter of initiatives proposed by the Biden administration to remove medical debt from people’s credit reports or to increase access to funding for minority-owned firms.
“Do these policies grant people greater freedom, choice, and, in the end, autonomy over their own lives?” is a question that keeps coming up in her inquiries. Rohini Kosoglu informed me of this, having worked as the chief of staff for Harris while she was a senator and as a domestic policy adviser to the vice president before. “Her cause is the empowerment of the American people,” she said.
Democrats and their allies are crossing their fingers that she would redouble her efforts to promote an economic agenda with a focus on the future, regardless of her exact platform.
When I questioned New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) about the Democratic platform on Tuesday, she agreed and named three issues—health care, housing, and child care—as “the largest pain points” in the party’s economic agenda.
“We truly must possess a vision for what lies ahead,” she proclaimed. “And we must discuss our plans for when the American people grant us control.”
