Vice President Kamala Harris made lofty promises during the most truncated presidential campaign in modern American history, including: poll show Voters are most concerned about the economy, abortion, gun policy, and immigration.
Since President Biden withdrew from the race in July, Harris has been trying to lay out her own policy proposals, embracing the work she has done as part of the Biden administration while also acknowledging that she is doing more than the Biden administration. They walk a fine line between claiming to do the following. Current and former President Trump worked to improve lives and livelihoods.
Let’s take a look at some of Harris’ campaign promises and her chances of success if she’s elected.:
Newly built house and down payment assistance
promise: Amid a national shortage of affordable housing, Harris called for 3 million new homes to be built over four years, arguing that doing so would meet demand and reduce costs.
This will be achieved, her campaign saysIt expands new tax incentives for starter and affordable home builders, streamlines the permitting process by eliminating red tape that slows construction, and “helps families build certain federal lands.” by making it available for reuse in new housing developments that can afford to do so.”
She called for the creation of a $40 billion “innovation fund” to help city and state governments find ways to finance and spur construction.
Harris is promising up to $25,000 Down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers who have paid their rent on time for two years, and more generous support for first-generation homeowners whose parents don’t own a home. The Harris campaign estimates that this could save more than 4 million households over four years.
Harris said The support will come in the form of tax credits.
Mr Harris said: “Part of my plan, which is based on the opportunity economy, is to give first-time homebuyers $25,000 in down payment assistance so they can just get their foot in the door and then have an opportunity to build. It’s about being able to engage in generational wealth.
“And this is my personal experience. I grew up as a middle-class kid. My mother was a hard worker. She raised me and my younger sister Maya. She saved money. And it wasn’t until I was a teenager that she was actually able to afford her first home,” Harris said in an interview with the National Association in September. About black journalists.
reality: Experts say the increase in housing supply will not have a significant impact on house prices for several years.
some economists asked a question The $25,000 down payment assistance warns that demand could increase significantly before enough new units are built. Intensifying competitionfurther inflating housing costs and adding to the already large federal deficit.
Your proposal requires: parliamentary approval — That will depend on the partisan makeup of the House and Senate after the election.
This incentive may not be of much use to first-time buyers in California. According to Zillowthe average home is worth more than $773,000. This is higher than states with more affordable housing, such as Texas, where average home prices are lower. worth it Approximately $301,000.
Restoring the right to abortion
promise: Harris, who has made reproductive rights a cornerstone of her campaign, said she would sign a bill in Congress that would enshrine the right to abortion, previously guaranteed in Roe v. Wade, into federal law.
she I promised “We will never allow the state to ban abortion.” In September, Harris said she supported ending senate filibuster It is a procedural tool that effectively requires 60 votes to pass a body of 100 senators to codify Roe.
Harris criticized former President Trump for the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade two years ago. for death Number of women unable to receive adequate medical care due to strict abortion bans.
Mr Harris said: “We will get to the point where we need 51 votes to get rid of the Roe filibuster and actually put the protection of reproductive freedom and the ability of every individual and every woman to make decisions about their own lives back into law. I think you should be your own body and not have the government tell you what to do,” Harris said. September interview on Wisconsin Public Radio.
“This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Harris said. speech in Atlanta last month.
reality: Codifying abortion rights into federal law would be difficult and would depend largely on which political party controls Congress. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to support legalizing abortion rights. To pass Harris’ reproductive health priorities, Democrats would need to flip the Republican-controlled House and keep the policies in place. their small majority In the Senate. They face an uphill battle in doing both.
Enacting federal abortion rights legislation would require enough votes to overcome the Republican Senate filibuster. Ending the filibuster is controversial. Senator Joe Manchin III Switched from Democratic Party to Independent Party The West Virginia native said he would. do not support Harris said this after calling for an end to the filibuster, which she called the “holy grail of democracy.”
When it comes to codifying Roe v. Wade, there is little agreement on what it looks like and at what stage of pregnancy abortion is allowed.
Assault weapons ban
promise: Harris has vowed to ban assault weapons nationwide. call them A “weapon of war” that does not belong on the “streets of civil society.”
Harris’ position is consistent with Biden’s. helped with the negotiations When he was a senator, a 10-year federal assault weapons ban was passed. The law was signed by former President Clinton in 1994 but expired in 2004. effort to revive it failed.
Harris, a former prosecutor, has long said that gun control opponents present a “false choice” between supporting gun safety laws and repealing the Second Amendment.
In addition to assault weapons, Harris she says she wants to Prohibits high-capacity magazines and repeating bump stocks. She also supports universal background checks for gun purchases and “red flag laws” that would allow courts to temporarily prohibit someone from owning a firearm if they pose a danger to themselves or others.
Mr Harris said: “It is a false choice to suggest that you are pro-Second Amendment or that you want to take guns away from everyone. “We believe we need to reinstate the ban and enact universal background checks, safe custody laws, and red flag laws,” Harris said. speech at the White House in September.
reality: Even though mass shootings in schools, shopping centers, concerts, movie theaters, nightclubs, and other places are a crisis in the United States, passing gun control measures remains extremely difficult.
If Republicans control the House, Senate, or both after the election, Congress likely won’t pass an assault weapons ban.
In 2022, Biden signs the most sweeping gun control measures in decades. The bipartisan bill would strengthen and ban background checks for the youngest firearm buyers. larger group Stopped domestic violence offenders from owning guns and helped enforce state red flag laws.
But for decades, Congressional Republicans have strongly supported Firearm regulations have been largely blocked by gun control advocates. try to revive And this summer, the Supreme Court struck down a Trump-era federal ban on bump stocks, attachments that allow shooters to fire hundreds of rounds per minute.
Trail Harris said during her campaign that she wanted to ban assault weapons, but didn’t want to confiscate all firearms. To prove that point, she highlighted that both she and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a military veteran and avid hunter, are gun owners.
In September, she told Oprah Winfrey, “If someone breaks into my house, I’m going to get shot,” and later joked, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”
Bipartisan border security bill signed into law
promise: Harris said President Trump, who has made immigration a centerpiece of his campaign, will push Congress to reinstate a bipartisan border security bill that Senate Republicans rejected earlier this year. Harris promised to sign the bill.
The bill would significantly expand deportation and detention, add thousands of Border Patrol agents and other personnel, speed up asylum processing, and expand visa and green card availability. that didn’t deal with it The issue of so-called Dreamers who entered the country illegally as children.
The National Border Patrol Council is a trade union representing employees; supported the bill. labor union supported Mr. Trump this month.
Mr Harris said: “This bill would have put more resources into prosecuting transnational criminal organizations for gun, drug and human trafficking. But do you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone and called some people in Congress and said, “Repeat the bill.” And do you know why? Because he preferred to solve problems, not solve them,” Harris said during a Sept. 10 debate with Trump.
reality: Of course, any new bipartisan border security bill would need to be passed by Congress before it can be signed into law. Partisan control of the House and Senate is clearly on the horizon, and it is unclear whether that will happen. It is also unclear whether President Trump will have enough influence to repeal the bill again even if he loses the election.
Border security is one of Harris’ biggest political responsibilities.
As vice president, she worked to address the root causes of immigration from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. He took on the job at Biden’s request. Although she has never been in charge of immigration enforcement or border policy, Republicans have painted her as a failed “border czar” responsible for a record surge in unauthorized immigration under the Biden administration. .
After Harris visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona last month, the National Border Patrol Council I wrote to X “For more than three years, I have ignored the border problem that I created,” she said.
playing cards It is called Mr. Harris’ statement. “Bull–” During Border Trip While talking about the current administration’s border policies, he called Harris a “mentally ill person.”
