Name: Kamala Harris sets out economic plan ahead of US election | BBC News
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Past perfect

Now, Kamala Harris has been laying out her economic plans in her first big policy speech since she became the Democratic presidential candidate in the race for the White House after Joe Biden had pulled out.

Adverbs of degree

Well, speaking of rallying in North Carolina, just a couple of hundred miles from where Donald Trump set out his economic agenda on Wednesday, Kamala Harris promised to lower the cost of living, to ban competitive pricing by the supermarkets, and promised to end the shortage of affordable housing as well.

It's all part of what she says she would create an opportunity economy.

Still, we know that many Americans don't yet feel that progress in their daily lives.

And on a deeper level, for too many people, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead.

As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability, and dignity.

Together, we will build what I call an opportunity economy.

Well, let's analyze that speech a bit with our North America correspondent, Nomia Iqbal, who joins us once again from Washington.

This was, as I say, her first big policy speech since she got the nomination, and very much about the economy, very much actually about inflation, which has been considered to be one of her vulnerabilities.

It's a major moment for her because she has been accused by her critics of being hostile and no substance.

They wanted to know, well, how do you plan to govern?

What does a President Harris look like in the first 100 days?

And the economy is the number one issue that voters care about, rising inflation, the cost of living.

And she addressed all of that, what her vision was.

Her speech was 30 minutes long, I think, which was pretty short, concise, if you certainly compare it to Donald Trump, who gave a speech in North Carolina also yesterday.

It wasn't anything radical from what we've seen regarding President Biden.

I don't think we expected it to be, of course.

Biden and Harris together have developed their economy plan over the last few years.

But I think what stood out was the way she kind of presented it.

She can talk about the economy and people's fears with more ease than President Biden could.

He was criticised for not showing enough empathy.

He would often talk about how the economy is growing fast, unemployment is low, things are getting better, and all of that is factually true.

But as you heard in the clip there, Ms Harris did make the point of showing empathy, saying, well, actually, you can say all these things are going on, but if people don't feel that way, if you don't go where they are, then they don't believe you.

And it's something that's an important issue, as I say, because voters care about it.

But the polls also suggest that they believe in Donald Trump's vision more, that they think he is stronger on the economy with his vision than she is.

So it is a crucial issue for her to tackle, and she did that today.

Normia, thank you very much indeed for that assessment.

Normia Eric-Bell there, our North America correspondent.

Well, it isn't just Kamala Harris who's focusing on the economy at the moment.

Her Republican rival, Donald Trump, has also been using his first major policy speech to outline his plans for the US economy, alongside promises to cut taxes, reform energy policy and increase oil extraction.

Mr Trump also attacked Kamala Harris and President Biden for their handling of the economy.

At one point, he held up two boxes of mints, one bigger than the other, to demonstrate inflation.

And if you were watching this programme last night, you might also have seen the former president flanked by a lot of household food staples on the tables there, amid claims of big increases in prices under the Joe Biden administration.

So we're just going to check out some of those price rises.

He is right that prices of most grocery staples in the United States have risen over the last four years.

Food prices over the last year have actually risen by around 1%.

That is according to figures from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics.

Now, the average price of a white loaf of bread, just for example, costs around the same, $1.98, there it is.

Coffee prices in the US fell by 2% in the year to April.

But one item where Donald Trump was bang on, egg prices.

They are up around 46% over the last year.

So back to our panel, Susie Boniface, Daily Mirror columnist, and also in Chicago, we have Chimi Esonwune, a democratic strategist.

Well, let's talk about how bad inflation is.

I guess you're not eating any eggs at the moment, are you?

Well, I am eating eggs and we see the Kamala Harris ticket also doing a lot to talk about affordability and pocketbook issues.

I think that when we really look at the speech she made, she had four areas that she wanted to tackle, housing, families, groceries, and healthcare.

With things like housing, you saw tax incentives to build starter homes, trying to extend child 25,000 to start for first-time home buyers, we thought was really amazing, trying to crack down on things like lending prices and rent prices for families, expansion of the child tax credit, which really started during the COVID activities and Biden and it had expired, trying to increase paid family leave, groceries, as you mentioned, with the eggs and things like that.

We have seen these prices increase, but she wants to do things like have a ban on price gouging and have unfair mergers and acquisitions that are increasing some of these rates, unfortunately.

Do you think she is vulnerable on this question of inflation that voters blame the Biden administration, of course, that she is part of for higher prices?

She's not vulnerable when we see things like Trump talking about largely doing attacks on her on energy and immigration policy versus really detailing a vision of his own.

You saw him surrounded in the last image by a lot of materials and grocery items, but not a plan to eliminate those things.

And just to challenge one of the things that your respondent said, yes, generally there's been challenges when with the Democrats and the Harris-Waltz administration talking about their trust on the economies, but for the first time, we see that turning around.

There was a recent poll by the Financial Times and University of Michigan, and actually put Harris for the first time with individuals in Michigan trusting her on the economy.

So laying out her vision and talking about affordably is really helping in that regard.

She does seem to be nudging up in the polls.

Yeah, she's working quite well in the swing states.

She's been, I think, four points ahead in the first three swing states, according to a New York Times poll last week.

I think it's Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

They've been out today talking about taxes on tips, which is the kind of thing which would go down well in places like Nevada, which is another state that she has to win.

But, you know, she's sort of following the Keir Starmer playbook a little bit, right?

She's not been mentioning an awful lot of policies up to now.

 She's just been playing all the whole, you know, I'm not a lunatic, vote for me.