WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is zeroing in on high food and housing prices as her campaign previews an economic policy speech Friday in North Carolina, promising to push for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries and laying out plans to cut other costs as she looks to address one of voters’ top concerns.
Year-over-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are 21% above where they were three years ago. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pointed to inflation as a key failing of the Biden administration.
The cost of housing is another major driver of inflation, and Harris plans to use federal resources to promote the construction of 3 million new housing units if elected, pass legislation to slow rent increases, and provide a $25,000 in down-payment assistance for first time homebuyers.
Harris is drawing closer to President Joe Biden’s legislative and economic record, casting her initiatives as an extension of the work their administration has done over the last three and a half years.
The Harris housing plan includes establishing a tax credit for homebuilders who construct starter homes for first-time homebuyers, and doubling a $20 billion Biden administration “innovation fund” for housing construction. The down-payment assistance would significantly expand on a Biden proposal to provide federal support to first-time buyers.
Earlier Thursday, Biden and Harris celebrated their efforts to cut prescription drug prices at an event in Maryland as she made her first joint speaking appearance with Biden since she replaced him at the top of the Democratic ticket nearly four weeks ago.
They announced that drug price negotiations will knock hundreds of dollars — in some cases thousands — off the list prices of 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs. The program was created through the 2022 health care- and climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act. Harris’ vote Senate vote, as vice president, helped Democrats overcome unanimous GOP opposition to make the bill law.
“The tiebreaking vote of Kamala,” Biden told the audience, “made that possible.”
He added that Harris is “gonna make one helluva president.”
Biden undertook his own efforts to contain rising food prices, including creating a “competition council” that tried to reduce costs by increasing competition within the meat industry,…