Harris’ attempt to separate herself from Biden on the economy frustrates Trump

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) — At the Throwback Brewery, Kamala Harris pivoted to the future, separating herself a little more from Bidenomics as she tries to run as a change candidate from an incumbent administration who is driving Donald Trump to distraction.

The vice president on Wednesday stopped in New Hampshire — home to 4 precious electoral votes — before heading off to debate camp in Pittsburgh ahead of her televised clash with the former president next week that could define the election endgame.

Harris’ political momentum and her chances in November hinge partly on her success in painting herself as a fresh option for voters and dispelling any notion she’s pitching for the second term of the unpopular president, Joe Biden.

This underpins her efforts to court Americans who are sour about high grocery prices and inflation and are locked out of the housing market, as well as her outreach to suburban moderates and middle-class voters in swing states.

The vice president had previously vowed to clamp down on price gouging by supermarket giants and pledged to give low-income, first-time homebuyers $25,000 for a downpayment. On Wednesday, she tacked toward the political middle by promising to nurture 25 million new small businesses in her first term with a $50,000 tax deduction for startups. And she called for a significantly lower hike in capital gains taxes than Biden proposed to spark investment and innovation.

“I believe America’s small businesses are an essential foundation to our entire economy,” Harris said at a brewery founded by two female business pioneers that sources local ingredients. “Small businesses in our country employ half of all private sector workers. Half of all private sector workers own or run a small business or work for a small business.”

The former president, who has been stoking nostalgia for the Trump economy before the crisis set off by the Covid-19 emergency, may attempt to respond to Harris’ recent economic maneuvering when he addresses the New York Economic Club on Thursday.

Seeking distance from Biden

The politics behind Harris’ strategy is clear. On the capital gains tax measure, for instance, Harris ditched a more progressive approach from Biden as she called for a 28% rate on those earning $1 million or more instead of the 39.6% rate that the president included in his budget for fiscal year 2025. Her gesture allows her to show she’s not a hostage to her boss’ policies as she rebuts Trump’s claim that she’s the heiress to a failed economic legacy. The proposal may not go unnoticed either by Democratic donors with wealth in investment income who have helped her raise half a billion dollars in campaign cash.

Harris’ embrace of the powerful mythology of American small businesses driving broader prosperity and the wider economy also seems designed to counter attempts by Trump and surrogates to dismiss the California Democrat as an extreme “San Francisco liberal,” a “communist” and a “Bolshevik.”

Her new approaches have led economists to debate the workability of “Harrisomics.” Would her federal ban on price gouging simply lead to shortages of goods as happened in the past? And would throwing more money into the housing market inevitably trigger price inflation and make homes even more unaffordable?

These questions might prove troublesome in the early weeks of a potential Harris administration. But less than nine weeks from the election, Harris is more concerned with creating a striking political impression than the mechanics of economic policy. Given Trump’s polling advantage on the economy, an in-depth fight on policy on the issue with her rival would probably not be wise anyway. Harris needs to make the election a referendum on personality and on which candidate can pose as a fresh political force. Even small steps out of Biden’s shadow therefore can be important.

Harris has, for instance, done far more than Biden to show that she understands the pain of young adults cut out of the housing market and shoppers who dread the cost of their weekly groceries. During his campaign, the president would often indignantly defend the successes of the economy and downplay the hardship that remains.

Why Harris may need to move away from Biden

James Carville laid out a potential strategy for Harris in a New York Times column Monday. He said the 2024 election would be defined by “who is fresh and who is rotten.” The veteran Democratic strategist also wrote that it would not be an insult to Biden for Harris to go her own way — it was imperative for her political identity. “It shows even more sharply that she is passionate about her own ideas and represents change rather than more of the same,” he wrote, recalling the slogan that helped former President Bill Clinton prevail as a change candidate over President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Harris’ attempt to convince voters she’s a new breeze is infuriating Trump. The ex-president’s comments and his campaign statements bristle with frustration that Harris, after four years in the Biden administration, is getting a fresh look and that he’s lost his role as change agent in the race.

Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance expressed incredulity that Harris could attempt this pivot in an interview with the Hugh Hewitt radio show on Wednesday. The Ohio senator sought to thwart Harris’ image makeover by stressing she was an incumbent. “You’re the vice president of the United States. You could be pursuing these policies immediately, but you’re not,” Vance said. “She has caused this inflation crisis with her policies, and now she wants to fix it by waving the magic wand.”

Vance also rejected the vice president’s plan for lowering grocery prices even as he admitted that not every American corporation was an “angel.”

“We’ve had price controls before in this country and everywhere else. It fails every time it happens,” Vance said. “It means you’re not able to buy flour. You’re not able to buy eggs in the grocery store. That’s what price controls do.”

The Trump campaign is also seeking to squelch Harris’ economic positioning with a cutting advertising campaign.

One recent ad that ran in Georgia patched together clips of news coverage of tough economic headlines. A television anchor bemoaned “the alarming spike in inflation soaring to its highest level in nearly 40 years.” Another says, “We’re still dealing with inflation.” In between these clips, the campaign shows tape of Harris praising “Bidenomics” and cheerfully saying in speeches that “Bidenomics is working.”

The Trump campaign on Wednesday dismissed the Harris small business plan, arguing that she would push for higher income taxes and expanded inheritance taxes among others that would hurt small firms and consumers. The ex-president has previously balked at the vice president’s adoption of his own proposal to end taxes on tips, which was especially seen as a play for hospitality workers in the swing state of Nevada.

Trump has been proclaiming that if Harris wins in November, the economy would slump into a Great Depression. He said much the same about Biden in 2020, but the president has presided over strong, consistent jobs growth and one of the strongest rebounds from the pandemic of any developed economy, notwithstanding the inflation crisis that his White House initially underestimated.

Trump’s plans are often as vague as those of his Democratic rival. As he did as president, Trump promised great deals for Americans without specifying how he’d make them work or pay for them. He offered this jumble of words on Fox News on Sunday, for instance: “We’re going to take care of Social Security, we’re not going to do anything to hurt our seniors. There is so much cutting, there’s so much waste in this government. There’s so much fat in this government.”

Trump’s plan, meanwhile, to drastically raise tariffs on imports — especially those from China – has prompted many economists to warn he will drastically raise costs for consumers and spark a new round of inflation.

But at this critical moment of a bitter, close campaign, both Harris and Trump seem less concerned with economic policies that are proven to work than those that can deliver an immediate political benefit.

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