Once again, the economy is on the ballot.
As the presidential campaign enters its final days, the candidates have laid out vastly different proposals on topics including jobs, taxes and tax credits, tariffs, prices and price gouging.
Republican Donald Trump promises to hike tariffs, extend tax cuts passed when he was president in 2017 and deport more than 10 million undocumented residents, which he and his surrogates have said will improve housing costs and create jobs.
He has also broached the idea of eliminating taxes on a range of workers, from restaurant servers to police officers, and has at least flirted with the idea of abolishing the national income tax and funding the government with tariffs.
Trump says his plan will be good for U.S. workers, standards of living and the economy.
Vice President Kamala Harris says he’s got it backward, that his ideas are bad for most Americans and harmful to the economy. Her economic proposals include expanded child tax credits, subsidies to first-time homebuyers and an extension of tax cuts, but not for higher-income households.
With Trump and Harris holding diametrically opposed views on so many subjects, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put out a call for questions from readers to see what they want to know about.
Sure enough, when readers wrote in with queries, the economy was on a few minds.
And, amid the rancor and fearmongering, are a series of competing economic proposals, many of them centered on taxes. (Keep in mind that most of the candidate proposals would need Congressional approval. But one exception is tariffs, a centerpiece of Trump’s campaign.)
Their proposals overlap in only a couple places.
On taxes
Both Trump and Harris propose eliminating taxes on tipped income, although ironically that point of agreement comes on something experts generally dislike (most tipped workers make too little to qualify in the first place). In any event, the candidates’ plans mostly diverge. Big time.
Trump proposes: Extending all the tax cuts from a 2017 law passed while he was president. That includes a higher standard deduction and lower marginal income tax rates.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
He also said he wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 15%, at least for some companies. The 2017 law had lowered the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.
Trump goes on to support elimination of taxes on a range of workers, as well as on overtime pay and Social Security benefits.
He has at least flirted with the idea of abolishing the national income tax and funding the government with tariffs. That idea has drawn some sharp criticism from most economists, partly because they say it would not come close to funding Social Security and Medicare, let alone the military, infrastructure and other things the federal government supports.
However, his reliance on tariffs has support from some manufacturers.
Harris proposes: To end the 2017 tax cuts, but only for people making $400,000 a year and up. She’s also talked about raising taxes on wealthier Americans.
She supports lifting the capital gains tax rate from 20% to 28%, but for those whose income is $1 million or more. She also wants what some call a “billionaire minimum tax” which would hit anyone with a net worth more than $100 million.
She also supports increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%.
On the ‘care economy’
Both candidates have issued suggestions for “the care economy,” the tens of millions of children, elderly and workers with disabilities who are cared for either by paid workers or unpaid families.
Jobs for those paid caregivers — often immigrants or minorities — are frequently low paid. Meanwhile, family members repeatedly depend on the help so they can work.
Trump proposes: In recent days, the former president says he wants a tax credit for family caregivers. He has also said he wants incentives that would lead to more care workers, but has not been specific.
Harris proposes: She wants Medicare to pay for home health aides for seniors who need help with daily living. Higher income seniors would pick up part of the tab, she says. Harris also wants Medicare to pay for glasses and hearing aids.
Harris also wants to restore 2021′s expansion of the child tax credit to as much as $3,600 per child.
Additionally, she’s called for a $6,000 child tax credit going to middle- and lower-income families with new children.
On the deficit
Neither candidate is even talking about balancing the federal budget.
For good reason. The plans of both would add to the nation’s debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group that wants to reduce the debt. Over a decade, the Harris plan would add nearly $4 trillion to the debt, while Trump’s would add nearly double that figure — $7.8 trillion, the group said.
On household expenses
Trump proposes: Capping credit card interest rates at 10%. Current rates are a little over 20%, according to Bankrate.
Trump also said he wants interest on car loans to be tax deductible the way mortgage interest payments can be deducted.
Trump says he would lower grocery prices, but has not offered details of how.
Harris proposes: A first-ever attempt at federally cracking down on “gouging” by food companies. She also said she’d ban some landlords from using algorithm-driven tools to set rents, something she says would cut down on the national purchase of homes by big investors.
On housing
Trump proposes: He has blamed regulations for slowing development and said he would cut them. Trump has also said higher housing costs are caused by undocumented immigrants. He says his plan for mass deportations would ease that problem. He also says they should be banned from getting mortgages.
Harris proposes: The government would give first-time homebuyers $25,000 toward a down-payment and a $10,000 tax credit.
Credit: J. Scott Trubey
Credit: J. Scott Trubey
She also wants a tax incentive for builders of homes for new buyers.
On deportation
One other proposal Trump has made that would have significant impacts on the U.S. economy is his call to deport millions of people who are undocumented.
The AJC’s Lautaro Grinspan has covered debates over the border in previous installments of Know Your Stuff.
The legality or ethics of mass deportations aside, removing millions of people who work in many sectors would disrupt the U.S. economy in many ways, experts said.
American agriculture employs large numbers of undocumented residents. Industry experts say there are simply not enough native-born Americans willing to do that work — at least at the wages offered.
So, removing millions of workers would mean either shortages or much higher costs, experts say.
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