A presidential campaign light on policy substance took a sudden turn this week into the details of governing, as both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris sought to show they have credible proposals for taming inflation, a top concern for voters.
Their plans were richer in ambition than detail but nonetheless revealing. Harris, the vice president, and Trump, the former president, showed far different views of the role of government in the economy.
Harris, who will formally accept her party’s nomination at next week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, called for a muscular use of government power to intervene in markets and for new tax policy to achieve social goals, in many cases going further than President Biden.
The vice president proposed new federal authority to ban price gouging in food and groceries, and new laws to deter corporations from buying up single-family homes and raising rents. Harris would address the housing shortage with tax breaks to build homes for first-time buyers, and child-rearing costs with subsidies for newborn children.
Trump, by contrast, said he would reduce prices by diminishing the government’s role in the economy, promising to roll back regulations on energy and other unspecified industries, and to cut taxes, including on Social Security benefits.
Where is the substance
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Originally Posted by Sandman
