Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, will unveil a series of economic policy proposals on Friday, including a new child tax credit.
The proposal would provide a $6,000 child tax credit in the first year of a newborn’s life, according to Harris-Walz campaign officials. It would also reinstate the child tax credit from the 2021 reconciliation bill and expand earned income tax credits for many taxpayers without children.
“This will provide a tax credit of up to $3,600 per child for middle-class and most disadvantaged working families with children,” officials said.
The tax portion of the proposal also includes tax credits for spent premium subsidies. Harris is expected to detail the economic messages and policy proposals during a campaign speech Friday afternoon in Raleigh, NC.
She is also expected to announce housing and cost-cutting proposals that the campaign team unveiled earlier this week.
Harris’ proposal to help first-time homebuyers goes beyond those proposed by President Joe Biden.
“The Biden-Harris administration originally proposed providing a $25,000 down payment and a $10,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit to only 400,000 first-time homebuyers – or homebuyers whose parents do not own a home,” a campaign fact sheet said. “Vice President Harris’ plan will simplify and significantly expand that plan by providing an average of $25,000 to all eligible first-time homebuyers while ensuring full participation by first-time homebuyers.”
According to the campaign, Harris also wants to “accelerate” the process by which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services negotiates prescription drug costs. CMS has announced the price list for the first ten drugs, with the reduced list prices set to take effect on January 1, 2026.
Biden and Harris appeared together in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on Thursday to announce the news.
Harris’ announcement of the key agenda items on Friday coincides with the second anniversary of the reconciliation bill that provided for Medicare price negotiations. The White House emphasized the vice president’s role in deciding the tie vote in the Senate that cleared the way for the bill’s passage.
“As Republicans in Congress seek to repeal this law – which would raise prescription drug costs and take away good-paying jobs from their constituents, all in order to give massive tax breaks to big corporations – Vice President Harris and I will continue to fight to move our country forward by investing in America and giving families more breathing room,” Biden said in a statement on Friday.
Republicans have also highlighted the vice president’s role in breaking stalemates in favor of the Biden administration’s agenda (for which she holds the record). However, Republican lawmakers like Sen. Joni Enst (R-Iowa) have a very different view of the importance of those votes.
“Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote on two trillion-dollar tax and spending bills that caused inflation to rise 20 percent,” Ernst posted on X earlier this week.
