New Empire State Freedom Initiative is Assessing Policy Risks and Developing Strategies To Protect New Yorkers
New Yorkers Took Action To Protect Abortion Access by Enshrining Reproductive Freedoms in State Constitution
Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James today updated New Yorkers on the ongoing work to protect the fundamental freedoms of New Yorkers in preparation for President-Elect Donald Trump’s second term.
Governor Hochul and Attorney General James announced a strengthened partnership, including new dedicated staff, to address potential federal legal threats to reproductive freedom, gun safety laws and other key issues. Governor Hochul also announced the new Empire State Freedom Initiative, which convened prior to Election Day and has already begun developing comprehensive plans to address any policy and regulatory threats that may emerge from a Trump Administration. The Governor also highlighted that New York has already taken steps to protect access to safe and legal abortions, including passage yesterday of Proposition 1 which enshrines reproductive freedoms in the State Constitution.
“The safety and wellbeing of New Yorkers are my top priorities,” Governor Hochul said. “I’m committed to working with anyone on policies that make our state stronger, safer and more livable — but my administration will also be prepared to protect New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms from any potential threats.”
“As Attorney General, I will always stand up to protect New Yorkers and fight for our rights and values,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said. “My office has been preparing for a potential second Trump Administration, and I am ready to do everything in my power to ensure our state and nation do not go backwards. During his first term, we stood up for the rule of law and defended against abuses of power and federal efforts to harm New Yorkers. Together with Governor Hochul, our partners in state and local government, and my colleague attorneys general from throughout the nation, we will work each and every day to defend Americans, no matter what this new administration throws at us. We are ready to fight back again.”
Strengthening Legal Partnership To Prepare for Federal Legal Threats
During President-elect Trump’s first term, the State of New York and its residents found itself targeted by the Trump Administration and federal agencies, forcing the State to respond with affirmative and defensive litigation against the federal government and federal agencies.
To prepare for future legal threats that could negatively impact New Yorkers, senior officials in the offices of Governor Hochul and Attorney General James will be convening regularly to coordinate legal actions, develop responses to federal agency administrative actions and provide guidance to New York residents, agencies and the private sector on key issues. This partnership will also include coordination with attorneys at state agencies and local governments across the State.
Convening the Empire State Freedom Initiative To Address Policy and Regulatory Threats
Governor Hochul has convened the Empire State Freedom Initiative – a team of experts from within her administration to develop strategies for protecting New Yorkers from a variety of policy and regulatory threats that could emerge under President-elect Trump. This team includes representatives from the Governor’s Office of Federal Affairs, the Office of the Counsel, the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services and other relevant agencies.
This task force is focused on key areas where New York State and New Yorkers are most likely to face threats from a Trump Administration, including reproductive rights, civil rights, immigration, gun safety and the environment, among other issues.
The task force has developed an initial analysis of likely statutory, regulatory and fiscal vulnerabilities based on the comments and policies outlined by Trump and his advisors. It will now be tasked with driving proactive measures that New York State and its agencies can take – both before and after Trump is sworn in – through state legislation, rulemaking, appropriations, partnerships with New York’s Congressional delegation and the Biden administration, and other actions.
Protecting Access to Abortion in New York
Following significant efforts by the Governor and the Attorney General to ensure that Proposition 1 was included as a New York State ballot measure for the 2024 Elections, yesterday New Yorkers overwhelmingly voted to approve Proposition 1, which enshrines reproductive freedoms in the State Constitution.
The passage of Proposition 1 builds upon previous action by the Governor to protect the reproductive rights of New Yorkers. The Governor signed legislation to strengthen New York’s Shield Law that protects doctors, medical providers and facilitators who provide reproductive telehealth services to patients outside of New York without fear of litigation in states where abortion services are outlawed or restricted. The Governor also signed legislation to allow New Yorkers to get contraception directly from a pharmacist without the need for a prescription.
In addition, the FY25 Enacted Budget made permanent the Abortion Provider Support Fund which has delivered $100 million in State funding to support abortion providers statewide.
Additionally, the Governor remains an active member of the Reproductive Freedom Alliance – a coalition of 23 governors working together to defend and expand reproductive freedom. The Alliance will continue leveraging the power of collective action to defend the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and ensure access to essential reproductive care.
Advancing Climate Goals and Reducing Emissions
As Co-Chair of the U.S. Climate Alliance, Governor Hochul will work with the Alliance’s bipartisan coalition of 24 governors – representing about 60 percent of the nation’s economy – to continue promoting a net-zero future by advancing state-led, high-impact climate action.
New York State and the U.S. Climate Alliance will address any future threats to climate action by remaining focused on advancing its key policy commitments, including goals of reducing collective net greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with the Paris Agreement, promoting clean energy deployment, creating good jobs and tracking and reporting key data on climate progress.
Guided by some of the nation’s most aggressive climate and clean energy initiatives, New York is on a path to achieving a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040, including 70 percent renewable energy generation by 2030 and economy-wide carbon neutrality by mid-century.
Continuing To Get Illegal Guns Off Our Streets
To continue New York’s nation-leading work to reduce gun violence, and in preparation for any threat to gun safety laws, Governor Hochul will continue leading the Interstate Task Force on Illegal Guns, which she first convened in 2022 and which has seized more than 28,527 illegal guns to date. Under this initiative, the murder rate has been the lowest since 1965.
The Interstate Task Force includes representatives of New York State Police, the New York Police Department and law enforcement officials from eight other states. This initiative will continue to play a critical role in stopping the flow of illegal guns across state lines, while also ensuring information sharing and collaborating on investigative strategies to solve major crimes.
20,000 packed Madison Square Garden for Trump’s rally, while thousands more were turned away after waiting hours on lines that stretched for blocks around the arena.
Out on the street with the MAGAs waiting for hours as we inched toward Madison Square Garden (only to be turned away), I heard the emphatic belief that Trump would win by a landslide, and anything less was theft. There were remarks about 2020 being stolen but not letting that happen again, and “fake news” of anything that was vaguely negative about Trump. No mention of indictments, convictions, being called a fascist by his own chief of staff and generals. There were also vulgarities spewed against Harris.
Those who couldn’t get in were offered a chance to watch the rally on a jumbotron outside the arena.
Meanwhile hundreds of anti-Trump protesters, waving signs that said “No Dictators in the USA,” “Fascist,” “Unfit” and “We’ve Seen This Before” (a reference to the 1939 American Nazi rally held at MSG and the rise of Hitler and Fascism that led to World War II) lined the Post Office steps across 8th Avenue from the Garden.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe in rural communities and understand that supporting locally led solutions is key to rural prosperity. Their administration will make it a priority to equip the nearly 50 million rural Americans with the tools and resources they need not just to get by, but get ahead.
Today, Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are announcing a plan for rural America. The key elements will:
Increase access to affordable and high-quality health care in rural communities—by adding 10,000 health care professionals, expanding telemedicine, cutting the number of ambulance deserts in half.
Support the sandwich generation to care for elders at home, lowering the cost of childcare and increasing the number of providers, and expanding the Child Tax Credit to provide tax cuts up to $6,000 for families with newborns.
Lower the costs of buying a home, starting and expanding a business, and raising a family—by sparking the construction of 3 million new housing units, providing up to $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, increasing the small business tax deduction for startup expenses 10-fold to $50,000.
Invest in the future of American agriculture by boosting access to credit, land, and markets, building new markets and streams of income for small- and mid-sized farmers and producers, and supporting the rise of the next generation of American farmers and ranchers.
Donald Trump will turn back the hard-earned progress that rural communities are making. As President, he tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and vows to terminate it if reelected, stripping protections from people with pre-existing conditions and devastating rural hospitals and care services. He will ban abortion nationwide, threaten access to contraception and IVF, and force states to monitor women’s pregnancies and report women’s miscarriages and abortions to the federal government.
He already took overtime pay away from millions of Americans while giving tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations – at the same time that he tried to cut funding that supports rural housing and creates rural jobs. If Trump returns to office, he promises to give more tax cuts to the super-rich and big corporations while hiking taxes on rural families by $4,000 a year – as estimated by the conservative leaning American Action Forum, and putting Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block.
Independent analysis from Goldman Sachs, Moody’s Analytics, and other top economists – including those surveyed by the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal – and more also agree that Vice President Harris’ plans are better for the U.S. economy than Donald Trump’s. For example, an analysis by Moody’s Analytics shows that, under a Harris presidency, more than a million new jobs would be added to the economy than under a second Trump Administration. Meanwhile, Moody’s finds that Trump’s plan would cause a recession by mid-2025, cost 3.2 million jobs, and add over 1 percent to inflation. And, a survey of nearly 40 top economists by the Financial Times and University of Chicago found that 70 percent agree that Vice President Harris would be better on the deficit than Trump, while only 11 percent believe that Trump would be better on the deficit than Harris.
Trump’s Project 2025 agenda will slash the federal crop insurance program, gut protections for clean water and air, and repeal the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which will roll back historic investments in small businesses and rural infrastructure including broadband, and clean energy. Under a Harris-Walz administration, rural America is not going back.
EXPANDING RURAL HEALTH CARE
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe quality health care is a right, not a privilege. That’s why they are announcing new initiatives to improve and expand affordable health care in rural areas. Their plan will recruit 10,000 additional rural health care professionals and protect and expand access to care from telemedicine to local independent pharmacies.
Recruiting 10,000 Rural Health Care Professionals, including doctors, nurses, community health workers, and EMS professionals to provide health services to Americans in rural and tribal areas—while working to protect our health workforce from burnout. This initiative will include:
Expanding Scholarships, Loan Forgiveness, and Other Pipeline Programs for Doctors and Nurses Who Will Provide Health Care in Rural and Tribal Areas: They will expand funding to recruit and retain doctors, nurses, pharmacists, public health professionals, and other health care providers through scholarships, loan repayment programs including the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program, the Indian Health Service Loan Repayment Program, and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Programs. Their plan to build 3 million new homes nationwide, including in rural and tribal areas, and to provide $25,000 in downpayment assistance will further lower costs of buying a home in rural America, creating incentives for health professionals to buy homes and stay in rural America. They will invest in programs that introduce rural youth to careers in medicine, and provide the necessary support for them to pursue that career path. This plan builds on Vice President Harris’s leadership in investing in programs to train more nurses and doctors who will live and work in rural and underserved communities, including funding an additional 1,000 residency slots in hospitals. When a provider trains in a rural area, they’re more likely to remain, living and working there.
Providing a Major Grant Program To Train and Fund Rural Community Health Workers: They will launch a new permanent grant program to train and fund Rural Community Health Workers; make it easier for Medicaid to cover Community Health Workers; and expand grants to Community Health Centers and Rural Health Centers.
Expanding Rural Telehealth Services: Americans living in rural areas are around 17 times more likely to use telehealth than those in cities, but half of all people living in rural areas lack access to the broadband speeds needed to support telehealth.
Double federal funding for telehealth equipment and technologies. They will double the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program for Rural Communities to $120 million. This will give rural and tribal communities more resources for telehealth equipment—including at rural health clinics, hospitals, and schools–and support innovative new technologies like tele-medically equipped ambulances.
Slashing the Number of Ambulance Deserts in Half: At least 2.3 million rural Americans live in ambulance deserts—meaning they live at least 25 minutes away from an ambulance—and in 14 states more than 10% of the population lives in such an area. Volunteer squads—which provide the majority of rural EMS staff—struggle to survive due to a lack of sustainable funding sources and difficulty recruiting new volunteers. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will take action to cut the number of rural Americans in ambulance deserts in half by the end of the decade:
Expanding EMTs and Paramedics in Rural Areas: They will dramatically increase financial and technical support to rural and tribal communities to train, equip, and employ first responders, and provide resources for ambulances, lifesaving equipment, and the construction and maintenance of first responder stations.
Increasing Funding and Support for Volunteer EMS Programs: They will provide grants to small volunteer ambulance and EMS programs to help them survive and thrive. These extra resources will support innovative uses of technology like telehealth and explore solutions to low reimbursement levels for both public and private insurers.
Keep Independent Pharmacies Open and Increase the Number by 3,000. Independent pharmacies make up more than three-quarters of pharmacies in rural areas, and their pharmacists are a critical and trusted health care resource. But nationally the number of independent pharmacies has decreased—by nearly 50% since 1980, leveling off at about 20,000 locations, with 1 in 10 independent retail pharmacies in rural America closing over the last decade.
A Harris-Walz Administration will set a goal of enabling 23,000 independent pharmacies to either launch or stay open by working to enact legislation that would prevent pharmaceutical middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers from shortchanging rural independent pharmacies and steering orders of the most profitable drugs away from independent rural pharmacies and to chains. This would be a 15% increase in the number of independent pharmacies – restoring the rural independent pharmacies that have closed over the last decade and increasing their number by 5%.
Keeping Rural Hospital Doors Open To Ensure Access to Emergency Services. Since 2010, nearly 150 rural hospitals have either shuttered or ceased providing inpatient hospital services. A Harris-Walz Administration will work to strengthen Medicare’s Rural Emergency Hospital Designation – which helps facilities offer medical services in areas that may not be able to sustain a full-service hospital, while protecting the Affordable Care Act and supporting Medicaid expansion, which has helped to reduce uncompensated care in expansion states and improves the financial health of rural hospitals. This will also help support improvement in maternal health, which Vice President Harris has long advocated for, by increasing access to options for obstetric care.
Lowering Health Care Costs. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will also lower health care and prescription drug costs for Americans. They will work to cap the cost of insulin at $35 and out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs at $2,000 for everyone. They will also fight to keep helping millions of Americans save $800 a year on their health insurance and accelerate Medicare negotiations over prescription drugs to help bring drug prices down more quickly and cover more drugs.
Restoring and Protecting Reproductive Freedoms. They will also keep fighting for womens’ rights to make decisions about their own bodies. The Vice President will, if elected, never allow a national abortion ban to become law. And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, she will sign it.
Supporting Veterinary Care in Rural Areas and address the increasing shortage of veterinarians by encouraging providers to work in areas with too few veterinarians by strengthening USDA’s Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program, which reduces debt for physicians working in high-need areas for the food supply, and increasing grants for starting and expanding veterinary practices in critical areas.
Trump meanwhile tried to end the Affordable Care Act and has promised to terminate it if reelected — over 500 rural hospitals at risk of closure could close. He sought to make significant cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid in every single one of his budgets. His Project 2025 agenda will reverse the caps on insulin and other prescription drugs, raising the prices on life-saving Medications.
A HISTORIC PLAN TO EXPAND ACCESS TO CARE AND SUPPORT THE SANDWICH GENERATION
Vice President Harris cared for her aging mother and knows that when families cannot find affordable care for their elderly parents or children, it is not just a big financial strain, but also a source of severe emotional stress that takes a big toll on families. Nearly a quarter of American adults are part of the sandwich generation providing intergenerational care to both their children and a parent or a loved one with disabilities.
Protect and Strengthen Medicare, Help Rural Seniors Live Independently, and Support Family Caregivers. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will protect Medicare and strengthen it with a historic Medicare at Home plan, which will cover robust home care for seniors under Medicare for the first time ever. This will help both seniors and their caregivers, who often shoulder the financial and emotional burden of caring for aging loved ones. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will also expand Medicare to cover hearing and vision benefits to support the millions of seniors who rely on glasses and hearing aids.
These plans are common sense. They can help family caregivers work and save both families and the federal government money by allowing seniors to stay in their homes instead of being sent to nursing homes, which are often more expensive. Medicare at Home will also reduce hospitalizations. These new benefits will be fully paid for and extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by expanding Medicare drug price negotiations and more.
Make Quality, Affordable Child Care Accessible and Expand the Child Tax Credit. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that millions of Americans are balancing both care for their children and care for aging loved ones. Too many rural families struggle to access affordable child care near them. One survey found that only 38 percent of rural parents could easily find childcare within their budget, compared to over half of urban parents. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will bring down child care costs for American families to help save thousands of dollars on child care and expand access to good child care options by building a robust child care supply. Vice President Harris is also proposing to expand and make permanent the Child Tax Credit, including giving families with newborns a tax cut of $6,000 per child. This will help families cover expenses early on in life. After Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the legislation that temporarily expanded the Child Tax Credit in 2021, it helped the families of over 9 million children in rural areas.
As president, Trump tried to cut Medicare and Medicaid in every single one of his budgets, has called for raising the retirement age to 70, and said privatizing Medicare will create a “stronger system.” He denied millions of families the full child tax credit and tried to cut federal child care funding by nearly $100 million. His Project 2025 agenda will actually raise costs on families by $4,000 a year.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are committed to helping rural communities grow and thrive economically. They are fighting to lower prices for Americans including through tax cuts for 100 million working and middle-class families and policies to lower the price of housing, groceries, and health care. They are also supporting small businesses by cutting red tape and proposing a ten-fold increase in the tax deduction for new businesses starting up.
Vice President Harris has fought for landmark investments in rural communities: high-speed internet access to every corner of rural and tribal America, as well as projects to build and fix roads and bridges in rural and tribal communities across America, and to support transit vehicles and infrastructure for thousands of rural and tribal transit systems. Rural communities stand to benefit from up to 45% of the total funding—or more than $450 billion—provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act is, and almost 30% of the IRA funding announced so far will flow to rural communities. Governor Walz has long championed rural communities. He spent 12 years representing a rural district in Congress, and as Governor, he spearheaded the largest single investment in broadband infrastructure in state history to help thousands of Minnesotans—including those in rural areas—connect to jobs, education, health care, and their communities.
But they know it is not enough—too many rural communities still do not have the tools they need to get ahead.
Supporting Small Businesses by Increasing Capital and Access to Resources. Vice President Harris has set an ambitious goal of 25 million new business applications by the end of her first term. She plans to encourage businesses to start and grow by increasing the small business deduction 10-fold to $50,000, providing low- to zero-interest loans to small businesses that grow and create jobs, allocating one-third of federal contract dollars to small businesses, and providing other financing for rural and tribal entrepreneurs through the Treasury Department’s State Small Business Credit Initiative—which lifts up entrepreneurs and founders in rural America, middle America, and underserved communities.
Create New Jobs and Opportunities Through:
New America Forward Tax Credits to promote investment in the industries of the future, including greater credits for companies investing in agricultural, manufacturing, and energy communities. This includes modernizing steel and iron production, developing biotechnology, building new data centers for AI and supporting AI innovation, further developing clean energy manufacturing, revitalizing America’s semiconductor industry, and investing in aerospace, autos, and other forms of transportation. These tax credits will provide significant additional benefits to investments made in longstanding manufacturing, energy, and agricultural communities and reward companies that work with unions and communities to support workers and protect jobs.
New Opportunities for Those Without Four-Year College Degrees including promoting meaningful pathways for those without college degrees to federal jobs and working with businesses to do the same in the private sector. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have also set a goal of doubling the number of registered apprenticeships during their first term. This will include partnerships with community colleges on high-quality, evidence-based training programs.
Cutting Red Tape so that America Can Build More Housing, Manufacturing, and Energy Projects Faster while also ensuring community engagement and adequate protections for the environment and public health. This will build Vice President Harris’s work through the Inflation Reduction Act to speed permitting review, and her work to finalize a rule to modernize environmental reviews.
Keeping Rural Schools Open and Thriving. Vice President Harris knows that a great teacher can have a life-long impact on children. But teacher shortages disproportionately impact rural communities throughout the country. That’s why she will double down on programs that prepare and train teachers in rural and tribal areas in an effort to support new teachers and increase retention rates in rural communities—all of which will improve student outcomes like academic achievement and high school graduation rates, resulting in higher long-term earnings, job creation, and a boost to the economy. She will also build on federal transportation programs that help get children to school where bus routes or vehicle maintenance costs put additional strain on already limited budgets.
Protect and Strengthen Social Security while Making the Super Wealthy Pay their Fair Share. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare by making the super-wealthy pay their fair share. Trump, by contrast, once called for raising the retirement age to 70, and he tried to cut Social Security and Medicare every year of his presidency. Now, on the campaign trail, Trump is continuing to talk up cuts to Social Security and Medicare, saying “there is a lot you can do…in terms of cutting.”
Lowering Costs:
Lower Costs of Buying and Renting a Home Across Rural America by sparking the construction of 3 million new affordable rental and owner-occupied homes, providing up to $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, and cracking down on predatory investors. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will also work to strengthen USDA’s programs for rural and tribal communities, especially in housing, and as part of their proposal to strengthen the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program to create more homes that are affordable for renters, they will work to ensure that rural states receive a fair allocation of these credits to address the unique challenges that rural communities face when dealing with housing challenges, including higher construction costs and lower housing density.
Providing Rural and Tribal Families with Reliable, Low-Cost Internet Access, by reenacting the Affordable Connectivity Program. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Affordable Connectivity Program provided 23 million households with up to $30 off of their monthly internet bills and a one-time discount of up to $100 to buy a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet. Over 3 million people who benefited from ACP live in rural and tribal areas. Vice President Harris will reenact this popular program, which ended in June of this year, to ensure that rural and tribal families can connect to the internet and obtain the financial, educational, and health opportunities that come from reliable internet access. She will also take common-sense steps to speed up the construction of new internet for rural and tribal communities.
Provide Funding and Support to Local Communities, Tailored to Address Local Needs.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will work with Congress to pass the bipartisan Rural Partnership and Prosperity Act, led by Senators Casey and Fischer. This will provide new grants to every state that will support locally led solutions to address rural and tribal communities’ needs—including for child care, housing, job training, and economic development.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will expand the Rural Partners Network nationwide by partnering with rural communities to help them navigate and access existing federal funding opportunities.
Trump neglected rural communities. He failed to address the housing supply crisis during this presidency, and now his Project 2025 agenda will increase mortgage premiums on federally backed loans, and drive up mortgage rates by around $1,200 by privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He also tried to eliminate the Economic Development Administration, and wants to repeal investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and more that have been strengthening the economies of rural communities. He will also raise costs by nearly $4,000 per family with a “Trump Sales Tax” on imported items that families rely on.
He also has no plan to support families and seniors. He has called for raising the retirement age to 70 years old. His Project 2025 agenda would slash funding for child care, abolish Head Start, and cut more than $20 billion in federal support for the nation’s most vulnerable students.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that America’s farmers, farmworkers, and ranchers feed our nation, drive our economic growth, and enhance our security and resilience. That’s why Vice President Harris helped secure nearly $20 billion in investments to help hundreds of thousands of farmers and ranchers adopt voluntary innovative conservation practices, promote sustainable agriculture, and increase resilience against extreme weather. She also directed $1 billion to increase meat and poultry processing capacity, up to $900 million to boost domestic fertilizer production, and funding to strengthen food supply chains and give farmers more choices. Governor Walz—who grew up spending time on the family farm—has stood by farmers and ranchers throughout his time in public service. In Congress, Governor Walz worked across the aisle to pass three Farm Bills to expand veterans’ access to crop insurance, farm education, and job training and enacted legislation to improve veterans’ health care. And as Governor, he championed efforts to support new farmers and to build new markets and revenue streams.
But Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that today too many small farmers and ranchers still face barriers to success or are getting ripped off by big corporations. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have a plan to invest in the future of America’s agricultural industry. They will combat consolidation and other barriers that make it more difficult for small farmers to get ahead, and support the next generation of American farming by:
Making it Easier for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers to Get Started by improving access to credit for beginning farmers—including by reducing barriers to receive USDA’s farm ownership and operating loans—and supporting training and technical assistance including for military veterans and young farmers. This builds on Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s proposals to provide one million forgivable loans to entrepreneurs who have historically faced barriers to accessing credit as well as low- to zero-interest loans to small businesses that create jobs.
Expanding Farmland Protection Programs including supporting working farm easements that ensure farmland remains farmland and isn’t lost to non-agricultural buyers.
Doubling Down on Partnerships with Farmers and Producers to Build New Markets and Streams of Incomes. That’s why Vice President Harris fought tirelessly for the Inflation Reduction Act, which included a $20 billion investment to help the agricultural community voluntarily adopt and expand conservation and climate smart agricultural strategies—all while saving money, creating new income streams, ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, and increasing productivity. If elected, Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will double down on this work.
Ensuring America’s Farmers Have the Right to Repair Their Equipment. Currently, equipment manufacturers put in place restrictions, such as software blocks on tractors and other farm equipment, that make it difficult if not impossible for farmers to repair their own equipment. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will require manufacturers of electronics-enabled agricultural equipment to share documents, parts, software, and tools with owners and independent repair shops by working with Congress to enact the Agricultural Right to Repair Act.
Boost Competition to Create Opportunities for Small Farmers and Ranchers. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will support small businesses in the agricultural industry, including continuing successful efforts to block excessive consolidation by working with Congress to pass bipartisan legislation to increase antitrust enforcement in agriculture and help ensure poultry growers and ranchers get a fair price. They will also focus on expanding production among new suppliers and small farms, growers, and processors to create broad-based, resilient local and regional food supply chains and spur competition with large conglomerates.
Ensuring Crop Insurance Works for All Farmers and Ranchers. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will strengthen the Federal Crop Insurance Program by directing the USDA to study whether the program should cover additional crops and working with Congress to ensure the program protects against more threats like natural disasters and extreme climate events – risks that raise costs and disrupt supply chains.
Growing Opportunities and Small and Mid-Size Farms and Small Businesses in Rural and Tribal Communities to Sell to Customers Around the Globe. Research shows that agricultural export losses due to retaliatory tariffs from Trump’s trade wars totaled more than $27 billion in 2018 and 2019. The impact on small farmers and rural communities was devastating: agricultural jobs fell, U.S. farm bankruptcies surged, and net farm income plummeted. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will provide technical assistance to small and mid-sized farmers and businesses so that they have more opportunity to sell their products.
Donald Trump will make the challenges that American farmers face worse. As President, he bailed out the largest 10% of farmers, while sacrificing smaller family farms in his trade wars. Between September 2018 and September 2019, farm bankruptcy filings rose 24% nationally. He also enabled big meatpackers and agribusinesses to run family farms out of business. As his own Secretary of Agriculture said, “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out.” Now, if Trump is elected again, his Project 2025 agenda will hurt rural America, including making crop insurance for family farmers even more expensive and risking another slew of retaliatory tariffs. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe in rural America and pledge to support rural Americans to create a New Way Forward.
While lying about the Biden administration’s swift and efficient relief efforts after Hurricane Helene, Trump has gone out of his way to undermine the relief effort, even deflecting resources by his showboat appearance in a stricken community, and sowing anxiety and distress among traumatized, desperate people.
Claiming to have had a sterling record on hurricane relief when he was president? Recall the disgusting scene of him tossing paper towels in Puerto Rico to victims of Hurricane Maria, and saying Puerto Rico was too far out into the ocean to get relief, then hiring a crony from Montana to fix the electric grid (it didn’t).
Trump, who in yet another instance of projection, accuses Biden of steering aid away from Republican communities (not true), but was the one who withheld disaster aid to California enduring historic wildfires, actually blamed the state for not trimming trees enough, and withheld coronavirus tests and masks to Democratic areas, telling Governors to fend for themselves.
Here’s a reminder from the Harris-Walz campaign: – Karen Rubin, news-photo-features.com, [email protected]
Damning News Report Revives Questions About Trump and Flood Protections
As Donald Trump campaigns in states impacted by Hurricane Helene, headlines are calling attention to a “damning” news report that raises questions about Trump’s record of rolling back flood protections and storm standards intended to prevent the kind of devastation we are seeing today.
The news comes on the heels of shocking reporting that Trump refused to provide disaster relief as President until he was briefed with political maps of how many people there voted for him.
This week’s news reflects Trump’s consistent record as President: gutting FEMA, blocking critical disaster relief, and making crisis after crisis about himself while leaving hard working Americans on their own.
Trump rolled back flooding standards intended to prevent the very kind of devastation we’re currently seeing in Western North Carolina and other parts of the South in order to benefithis wealthy donors
Trump diverted over $150 million in FEMA disaster funds ahead of Hurricane Dorian hitting the Southeast
He threatened to veto legislation providing nearly $5 billion in disaster relief funding after extreme earthquakes
He dangled federal aid for Michigan over his opposition t0 the state’s mail-in ballot program
Trump called for cuts to numerous programs that help prepare, manage, and mitigate wildfiresHe proposed budget cuts to NOAA that would have left the US unprepared for extreme weather
He refused to give California wildfire aid until told how many people there voted for him
Trump’s running mate is no better: JD Vance voted against $16 billion in disaster relief and lifting restrictions for FEMA funding.
Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 agenda would go even further.
Project 2025 proposes eliminating disaster loans for families and small businesses rebuilding after storms and to cut assistance for hurricane victims
Project 2025 calls to increase FEMA’s threshold for state and local government disaster assistance
Project 2025 recommendsprivatizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program and rolling back FEMA emergency response spending, saddling states and localities with the majority of preparedness and response costs at a time when climate change is raising the likelihood and cost of natural disasters
And it would officially dismantle NOAA and eliminate the National Weather Service’s federal weather forecasting
DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd added, “JD Vance took time in Georgia today to shout out his ‘great friend’ right after she finished spreading fresh conspiracy theories about how ‘they’ can control the weather while Georgia is still recovering from Hurricane Helene. Let’s be clear: Marjorie Taylor Greene is a wildly out-of-touch conspiracy theorist and election-denying extremist who is as toxic to voters as the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda itself — and that’s just another reason why we’re sure that Vance will have plenty more free time to spend with his ‘great friend’ after this November.”
Harris-Walz 2024 Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika stated, “As president, Donald Trump gutted FEMA, blocked disaster relief, rolled back flooding standards to benefit his wealthy donors, and made crisis after crisis about himself instead of keeping Americans safe,.
” A Trump victory this November is a disaster waiting to happen: His Project 2025 agenda would slash FEMA funding, privatize weather forecasting, and leave us unprepared for the coming storms.
“Americans deserve a president who works to prevent these extreme weather crises, not an unserious man who tosses paper towels at a photo op when people are suffering. Vice President Harris will always fight to ensure families and communities have the resources they need to make it through extreme weather events like we’re seeing now.”
Critics suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris has not detailed her plans as president (while not seeking the same detail from Donald Trump). Here, Harris documents “A New Way Forward” to build American industrial strength, powered by American workers. She intends to use new America Forward Tax Credits to incentivize investment in strategic industries critical to U.S. leadership in the global economy, removing barriers, while creating well-paying union jobs. This fact sheet was provided by the Harris-Walz campaign:– Karen Rubin/[email protected]
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are committed to building a stronger economy where everyone has an opportunity to chase their dreams and aspirations, and where the United States continues to out-innovate and out-compete the world in the 21st century. Today, they are releasing additional plans as part of their pragmatic agenda to invest in and continue to rebuild America’s industrial capacity. This strategy builds on their core priorities of lowering costs for families, restoring families’ basic economic security and ensuring the middle class continues to be a source of growth for our economy, while investing in American innovation and entrepreneurship.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that building our capabilities requires investments in our workforce, foundational research, incentives to deploy new technologies, and reforms to build factories and facilities across America at scale and speed. Their plan will do that. They will empower American workers—including union workers and those without a college degree—to surge America’s lead in the industries of the future, revitalize manufacturing communities so that they are at the cutting-edge of manufacturing growth, and cut red tape so America can build more and faster. These efforts will enable the United States to maintain its competitive edge in the industries that are strategic to our economic and national security.
In Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s vision of an Opportunity Economy, America vigorously invests in and competes for the future, through a strategy that insists on creating opportunity for all and leaving no areas or set of workers behind. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are calling for a New Way Forward for the middle class—where America invests in the most strategic industries of the future, with a plan to ensure workers and communities share in the benefits of those investments.
The American people face a choice in this election between two fundamentally different paths for our economy. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s Project 2025 agenda would weaken the economy and hurt the middle class. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s plan will build up the middle class and make sure our economy works for everyone. They know the American economy is the most powerful force for innovation and wealth creation in human history. Their pragmatic approach to strengthening the middle class, supporting workers and unions, and driving our economy forward is grounded in the fundamental values of fairness, dignity, and opportunity.
Launching “America Forward”—To Build America’s Industrial Base and Lead in the Industries of the Future. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will create an America Forward strategy to drive a new era in American industry and help deploy technologies and manufacture them at scale. Across America Forward investments, a Harris-Walz Administration will focus on making products in America and supporting workers, manufacturing communities, and energy communities. Their strategy will build an economy where all Americans have the chance to compete and succeed.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s America Forward strategy will accelerate our progress, building on the historic investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those landmark laws have already spurred billions of dollars of new private investment in emerging technologies and public funding for clean energy technologies, basic research, semiconductor manufacturing, and more.
Creating America Forward Tax Credits. To build America’s industrial base and continue to lead the world, Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are proposing America Forward tax credits targeting investment and job creation in key strategic industries essential to our economic growth and national security. The America Forward tax credits will be linked to the treatment of workers, ensuring the right to organize, and supporting investments in longstanding manufacturing, energy, and agricultural communities.
Investments that would benefit from the America Forward tax credits include, for example:
Investments That Make Sure America—Not China—Leads in the Critical Industries of the Future. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s strategy is designed to maintain and extend America’s edge in industries of the future. This includes modernizing and reducing emissions in steel and iron production, developing biotechnology that can help produce critical medicines and new sustainable materials, investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation and building new data centers for AI, expanding clean energy manufacturing and innovation, revitalizing America’s semiconductor industry, investing in aerospace, autos, and other forms of transportation, and producing industrial tools and machines critical to our national and economic security. America cannot sit on the sidelines and cede leadership to nations like China, jeopardizing our national security. From her work on the development and implementation of the White House executive order on AI to her global leadership on AI safety and the convenings she has hosted with labor and civil rights leaders, Vice President Harris has always prioritized innovation that not only keeps America in the lead but that strengthens America’s workforce, protects consumers, and keeps Americans safe.
Rewarding Investment That Brings All Areas and Workers Along. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe that no one who grows up in one of America’s great industrial or agricultural centers should be abandoned. The America Forward tax credits will provide significant additional benefits to investments made in longstanding manufacturing, energy, and agricultural communities, or longstanding steel and iron communities such as Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley. These new tax credits will also reward companies that work with unions and communities to support workers and to protect jobs.
Creating Opportunity for All Workers, Including Those Without a College Degree. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe that anyone with the skills to do a job should be able to get the job, whether or not they have a formal degree. There are tens of millions of good-paying jobs that do not require a college degree—and their plan to invest in America’s industrial capacity will create even more. They will address barriers holding workers without a degree back from working in jobs that they can succeed in and earning a good salary where they live.
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz pledge to eliminate unnecessary degree requirements and promote meaningful pathways for those without college degrees for 500,000 federal jobs—and challenge the business community to do the same. They will also support partnerships with businesses, unions, school districts, community colleges, and faith-based groups to expand access to high-quality, evidence-based programs and create millions of new training opportunities such as registered apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships, joint-labor management partnerships, and other training opportunities that lead to a good job. In particular, they will set a goal to double the number of registered apprenticeships in America by the end of their first term—in industries ranging from advanced manufacturing to the trades to teaching to health care to cybersecurity and more, as well as a focus on opportunities for youth. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will also continue to invest in America’s public schools and strengthen STEM education as we prepare the next generation of workers and researchers to compete globally. And they remain committed to cutting red tape by reducing barriers to occupational licensing across state lines, as well as ensuring that workers continue to have good-paying jobs and opportunities amid technological advances.
In addition, Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will reform our tax laws to make it easier for businesses to let workers share in their company’s success, including through broad-based employee stock ownership, profit-sharing plans, and comparable arrangements, with appropriate guardrails to ensure these plans benefit and protect workers.
Invest To Develop and Secure America’s Research Base. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that America’s edge in the development of new technologies arises from our ability to lead in basic research while also commercializing at scale. They are proposing a significant investment to shore up our national and economic security by making sure the United States—not China—leads in AI, quantum computing, blockchain, clean technology, biomanufacturing, semiconductors, and other key technology research areas. They will do this by scaling up and making permanent the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, a shared public research infrastructure to give startups, researchers, and students access to the most advanced computing power, data, and analytical tools, to surge responsible discovery and innovation in AI and allow them to compete with large, privately funded AI companies. They will also ramp up investments in the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s national labs, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and other public research and development agencies to keep America at the forefront of technological development.
Safeguarding Access to Critical Minerals for American Manufacturing. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s strategy will build a U.S. stockpile and create incentives to build out domestic processing capacity of critical minerals necessary for our economic and national security, including by launching a national reserve for these resources and leveraging the Defense Production Act, Department of Energy resources, and other tools. Increased domestic production will be paired with innovative and sustainable steps to build stronger critical mineral supply chains alongside our allies and partners, including by incentivizing investments that expand U.S. and allied production of these resources. These efforts will reduce our dependence on China, which leads production on many critical minerals.
Building More—and Faster—by Cutting Red Tape. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that it takes too long and costs too much to build in America. They support reforms to build projects in the industries of the future more quickly and efficiently and that these projects reflect community input and protect our environment and public health.
Thanks to Vice President Harris’s leadership, we have already made tremendous progress in accelerating new manufacturing projects with strong community buy-in, including through Project Labor Agreements and Community Benefit Agreements. Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to secure $1 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act to speed permitting review, and she helped finalize a rule to modernize environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act that creates new ways for projects to qualify for the simplest form of environmental review, promotes early public engagement, and accelerates project reviews while setting clear deadlines.
Vice President Haris and Governor Walz will be laser-focused on accelerating projects and unleashing the full potential of American industry by cutting red tape that slows projects down, including through permitting reform that ensures projects are built quickly and efficiently, reflect public input and public priorities, and protect our environment and public health.
Leveling the Playing Field. Vice President Harris won’t let other countries such as China undermine these investments in our workers and U.S. manufacturing. The Biden-Harris Administration has stood up to China when it breaks the rules—including when China threatens American workers and businesses by engaging in unfair trade practices such as flooding the global marketplace with artificially low-priced goods, undermining American shipbuilding, or engaging in forced technology transfer or intellectual property theft. As President, she will never hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of the road at the expense of our workers, our communities, and our companies. She will also crack down on counterfeit and unsafe goods from China to protect American entrepreneurs, innovators, small businesses, and consumers. She believes in upholding and strengthening international economic rules and norms that protect fair trade and create predictability and stability.
Supporting American-Made Products. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will enforce Buy America requirements and strengthen the work of the Made in America Office that launched three years ago. They will also focus on contracting with firms that produce in America. In contrast, under Donald Trump’s presidency, he awarded $425 billion—one in four dollars of all federal contracts—to companies engaged in offshoring.
Ensuring These Investments in American Innovation Are Paid For. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are committed to fiscal responsibility—making investments that will support our economy, while paying for them and reducing the deficit at the same time. This plan will cost approximately $100 billion and will be paid for by a portion of the proceeds of international tax reform, which seeks to prevent a global race to the bottom and to discourage inversions, outsourcing, or international tax strategies designed by corporations to avoid paying their fair share to the United States.
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Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are charting a New Way Forward—to a future where everyone has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. They will invest in the competitive advantages that make America the strongest nation on Earth—our workers, innovation, and industry—so that America remains a leader in the industries of the future.
Donald Trump, by contrast, failed to deliver for American manufacturing. His presidency was a tale of broken promises. His signature legislative achievement was a $2 trillion tax law that overwhelmingly favored the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations, making the rich richer.
As a result of Trump’s trade war and his disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic response, by the end of his presidency he wiped out more than half of the manufacturing jobs gained from nearly a decade before. He let China seize the advantage in the production of key technologies, stood by while factories closed and jobs were lost, and tried to cut funding for the loan and research programs that have been advancing American technology. He failed to pass serious legislation that could have boosted our infrastructure or advanced American manufacturing—but the Biden-Harris Administration got it done.
A second Trump presidency would be even worse. His Project 2025 agenda would repeal the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, threatening hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs. And he would establish what is effectively a national sales tax on everything from groceries to prescription drugs, costing middle-class families nearly $4,000 a year.
In an address at the U.S.-Mexico border in Douglas, Arizona, Vice President Kamala Harris called for tougher security measures at the border and directly called out Donald Trump’s failures as President to secure the border and his deliberate actions to block bipartisan legislation to do so.
She slammed Donald Trump for wanting to run on a problem instead of fix a problem, saying, “The American people deserve a President who cares more about border security than playing political games.” She reminded that cruelty was not a “bug” but a deliberate feature of Trump’s handling of asylum-seekers and migrants, cruelty.
As a former border state Attorney General, Kamala Harris understands what security and enforcing the law at the border means, prosecuting transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings. She unveiled her approach to “target the entire global fentanyl supply chain” to “significantly reduce the flow of precursor chemicals from China” and protect Americans from the “unimaginable destruction” it is causing.
“On behalf of all communities across our nation that want to see these problems solved I say: We cannot accept Donald Trump’s failure to lead. We should not permit scapegoating instead of solutions. Or rhetoric instead of results, said Vice President Harris. “As your President, I will: Protect our nation’s sovereignty. Secure our border. And work to fix our broken system of immigration…I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly, and humane. We can and must do both…
“As President, I will put politics aside to fix our immigration system, and find solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long.”
Below is a highlighted, slightly edited transcript of Harris’ remarks:
Arizona: There are highly consequential issues at stake in this election.
And one is the security of our border.
The United States is a sovereign nation.
And I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border, and to enforce them.
I take that responsibility very seriously.
We are also a nation of immigrants.
The United States has been enriched by generations of people who have come from every corner of the world to contribute to our country and become part of the American story.
And we must reform our immigration system, to ensure that:
It works in an orderly way.
It is humane.
And it makes our country stronger.
I have just come from visiting the border and the port of entry in Douglas.
I spoke with dedicated agents from border patrol, and customs officers who, every day, oversee the flow of commercial traffic through the port.
The men and women who work there, and at other places along our southern border, help keep our nation secure.
And they need more resources to do their jobs.
Which is why we are investing half a billion dollars to modernize and expand the port of entry here in Douglas.
And why, last December, I helped raise the rate of overtime pay for border agents.
It is also why I strongly supported the comprehensive border security bill, written last year by a bipartisan group of Senators, including one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate.
That bill would have:
Hired 1,500 more border agents and officers.
Paid for 100 inspection machines to detect the fentanyl that is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.
It would have allowed us to more quickly and effectively remove those who come here illegally.
And it would have increased the number of immigration judges and asylum officers.
It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades.
It was endorsed by the Border Patrol Union.
And it should be in effect today, producing results for our country.
But Donald Trump tanked it.
He picked up the phone, called some friends in Congress, and said, stop the bill.
Because he prefers to run on the problem, instead of fixing the problem.
The American people deserve a President who cares more about border security than playing political games.
And so, even though Donald Trump tried to sabotage the border security bill, it is my pledge that, as President, I will bring it back up and proudly sign into law.
Now, border security is not a new issue to me.
I was Attorney General of a border state.
I saw the violence and chaos that transnational gangs caused.
And the heartbreak and loss from the spread of their illicit drugs.
I walked through the tunnels that traffickers used to smuggle contraband into the United States.
I’ve seen tunnels with walls as smooth as the walls of your living room, complete with lighting and air conditioning.
Making clear that the transnational criminal organizations are profiting from those tunnels.
And my knowledge of how they work comes from the fact that I have prosecuted transnational gangs, who traffic in guns, drugs, and human beings.
My team and I broke up a heroin trafficking ring in the Bay Area, with ties to Mexican cartels.
Took down a gang working with the Sinaloa Cartel to traffic methamphetamine into the United States.
Seized millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine from the Guadalajara Cartel.
And broke up a drug trafficking operation, including pill mills and so-called recovery centers, that were pushing opioids, with deadly results.
And as Attorney General of California, 10 years ago, I led a bipartisan delegation of American State Attorneys General to Mexico.
Where we worked closely with the Attorney General of Mexico.
To increase intelligence sharing on gang activity.
All of which allowed us to prosecute more human traffickers.
And I started the first comprehensive report in the state of California analyzing transnational criminal organizations, and the threats they posed to public safety and the economy.
So stopping transnational crime and strengthening our border has been a long-standing priority of mine.
I have done that work.
And I will continue to treat it as a priority, when I am elected President.
I will reach across the aisle, and embrace commonsense approaches and new technologies to get the job done.
Because I know, transnational gangs are always innovating.
And to disrupt and defeat them, we must do the same.
As President, I won’t just bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump tanked.
I will do more to secure our border.
To reduce illegal border crossings, I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry.
Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed.
And barred from re-entering for five years.
We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators.
And if someone does not make an asylum request at a legal port of entry, and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum.
While we understand that many people are desperate to migrate to the United States, our system must be orderly and secure.
Securing our border also means addressing the flow of fentanyl into our communities.
Fentanyl is a scourge on our country.
It is highly addictive.
And it is highly lethal.
So much so that using it one time can be fatal.
I have met too many families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl.
Their grief is heartbreaking.
And the devastation caused by fentanyl is being felt from rural communities to big cities.
So as President, I will make it a top priority to disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Most of the fentanyl in America comes from two cartels based in Mexico.
Most often, they are smuggling it through passenger and commercial vehicles at legal ports of entry, like the one I visited today.
The fact is, border officers don’t have enough resources, and are only able to search a small fraction of the vehicles that pass through their checkpoints.
This is unacceptable.
They need the resources to do their jobs.
As we could have done with the border security bill, I will surge support to law enforcement agencies on the front lines.
More personnel. More training. And more technology.
Including 100 new inspection systems that can detect fentanyl hidden in vehicles.
And we will make sure all our ports of entry, including airports and seaports, have additional state-of-the-art technology to detect fentanyl, and the chemicals and tools used to make it.
I will also double the resources for the Department of Justice to extradite and prosecute transnational cartels.
I will ensure we target the entire global fentanyl supply chain, because we must materially and sustainably disrupt the flow of illicit fentanyl into our country.
My approach takes into account that the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl are, by and large, made in China.
And then, shipped to Mexican cartels, and trafficked to the United States.
Our Administration demanded that China crack down on the companies that make those chemicals.
And it has started to happen.
But they need to do more.
And as President, I will hold them to their commitment to significantly reduce the flow of precursor chemicals from China.
All to say:
I will tackle this issue from every angle.
Because our highest charge must be to protect the lives of our people.
And, we must ensure that our country remains strong and competitive.
Which includes fixing our broken immigration system.
And let me be clear:
I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly, and humane.
We can and must do both.
We need clear legal pathways for people seeking to come to our country.
And we must make our current system work better.
For example, it can take years for asylum claims to be decided.
This is a problem we can solve.
Including by hiring more asylum officers, and expanding processing centers in people’s home countries.
And as President, I will work with Congress to create, at long last, a pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who have been here for years.
Like Dreamers.
I have met with Dreamers throughout my career.
They who have grown up in the United States, were educated here, pay taxes here, serve in our military, and contribute to our communities every day.
They are American in every way.
But still, they do not have an earned pathway to citizenship.
And this problem has gone unsolved for decades.
The same goes for farmworkers, who ensure we have food on our tables, and who sustain our agricultural industry.
They, too, have been in legal limbo for years.
Because politicians have refused to come together and fix our broken immigration system.
Well, as President, I will put politics aside to fix our immigration system, and find solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long.
As I said at the beginning:
These issues are highly consequential for our nation.
And the contrast in this election is clear.
It is a choice between commonsense solutions, and the same old political games.
In the four years that Donald Trump was President, he did nothing to fix our broken immigration system.
He did not solve the shortage of immigration judges and border agents.
Or create lawful pathways into our nation.
He did nothing to address our outdated asylum system.
And did not work with other governments in our hemisphere to deal with what is clearly a regional challenge.
As overdoses went up during his presidency, he fought to slash funding for the fight against fentanyl.
And what did he do instead?
He separated families.
Ripped toddlers out of their mothers’ arms.
Put children in cages.
And tried to end protections for Dreamers.
He made the challenges at the border worse.
And he is still fanning the flames of fear and division.
And so, on behalf of all communities across our nation that want to see these problems solved…
I say:
We cannot accept Donald Trump’s failure to lead.
We should not permit scapegoating instead of solutions.
Or rhetoric instead of results.
As your President, I will:
Protect our nation’s sovereignty.
Secure our border.
And work to fix our broken system of immigration.
And I will partner with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to do it.
It is time for us to turn the page on the ugly battles that have characterized our politics.
And time to move forward together, to achieve real solutions that make our country stronger.
FACT SHEET: Secure the Border, Protect Our Homeland, Stop the Flow of Fentanyl, and Fix Our Broken Immigration System
Vice President Harris will secure the border, stop the scourge of fentanyl on our streets, and fix our broken immigration system by working with Democrats, Republicans, and independents. She will embrace commonsense approaches as well as new technologies and modern solutions.
She is uniquely positioned to meet this challenge. As Attorney General of a border state, she prosecuted transnational gangs that traffic in guns, drugs, and human beings. She broke up a heroin trafficking ring with ties to Mexican cartels, took down a gang working with the Sinaloa Cartel to smuggle methamphetamine into the United States, and worked with the Attorney General of Mexico to prosecute more human traffickers. She also knows we need to reject the false choice between securing our border and creating a system of immigration that is orderly and humane. We can and must do both.
Donald Trump wants to sow chaos and disorder at the border. He prefers to run on the problem instead of fixing it. He blocked a bipartisan border security bill with the toughest reforms in decades, just to score political points. He did nothing to fix our immigration system in his four years as President, while ripping toddlers out of mothers’ arms and separating 5,000 migrant families at the border. Now, he is continuing to fan the flames of fear and division—saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and promising a “bloody” round-up of millions of immigrants who have lived and worked in America for years, tearing families apart.
The American people deserve a President who cares about fixing these problems, instead of playing political games. Vice President Harris is committed to serious solutions to secure our border, crack down on fentanyl, keep families together, and fix our broken immigration system.
Vice President Harris will make it a top priority to secure our border and ensure that illegal border crossings get lower and stay low.
Keep the border closed between ports of entry to crack down on illegal border crossings. Vice President Harris will put in place stronger emergency authorities than those in place as a result of the Biden-Harris Administration’s executive actions. She will make it harder to lift the emergency authority by requiring that the number of average border crossings be lower for longer before the shutdown can be lifted.
Impose consequences for illegal border crossings. She will continue to ensure that those who cross our border unlawfully will be apprehended, removed, and barred from re-entering for five years. Repeat violators will face felony prosecution. And those who cross the border unlawfully will be barred from receiving asylum.
Sign the bipartisan border security bill that Trump sabotaged. Vice President Harris, along with President Biden, negotiated the toughest border bill in a generation—a bill that was supported by some of the most conservative senators and the Border Patrol union. Trump tanked that bill for his own political gain, blocking vital resources and personnel from being deployed to secure the border. As President, Vice President Harris will work with Congress to pass the bill and request it in her budget, adding 1,500 Border Patrol agents and other personnel, 4,300 asylum officers, 100 immigration judges, and new drug detection technology, providing the additional personnel, resources, and authorities we need to secure the border. This bill will bring order to the border by reducing illegal immigration and create a fast and fair asylum process in which those who qualify are quickly admitted and those who are not are quickly removed.
Double the Department of Justice’s budget for prosecuting transnational criminal organizations and cartels and extraditing cartel leaders to the United States, and impose higher sentences on human traffickers. Vice President Harris will strengthen efforts to ensure that the transnational criminal organizations and cartel leaders making billions off human trafficking and narcotics are brought to justice through a game-changing expansion of resources devoted to prosecuting members of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, aggressively extraditing their leaders to the United States, and seizing their assets. These resources would support components of the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation devoted to this mission. Vice President Harris will also work with Congress to impose longer sentences on criminal organizations that engage in human trafficking.
Further modernize screening and vetting to keep bad actors out. The United States relies on screening and vetting to make it more difficult for actors with ill intent—whether cartel leaders or terrorists—to receive visas, board international flights, or cross borders. Vice President Harris will modernize our screening and vetting infrastructure to prevent bad actors from gaining entry to the United States by adopting new technologies and ensuring we have the intelligence and law enforcement personnel needed to keep pace with emerging threats. She will prioritize our intelligence community’s collection and analysis of open-source intelligence and new streams of information, and she will expand intelligence partnerships around the world to receive warnings of evolving threats to disrupt terrorist plots before they arrive at our border.
Strengthen partnerships with Mexico and other nations in the Americas. Illegal migration is a transnational issue, and Vice President Harris will bring a pragmatic, transnational approach to it. She will strengthen law enforcement cooperation across the entire U.S. government with allies and partners throughout the Western Hemisphere to collectively crack down on fentanyl trafficking, to dismantle human smuggling networks, and to interrupt illegal migration. Through information sharing and close partnership across the region, the United States will be better positioned to spot and address trends in illegal migration.
Vice President Harris will disrupt the flow of fentanyl—from cutting off the precursor chemicals manufactured in China to stopping the smuggling of fentanyl into the U.S. by Mexican cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
Fentanyl—a highly addictive and highly lethal synthetic opioid—is killing more Americans today than any other drug. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have mourned with the loved ones of overdose victims and seen firsthand the havoc fentanyl is wreaking on families and communities. While Trump was in office, overdose deaths rose meteorically. His response was trying to cut funding by 95% for the office leading the fight against opioid overdoses. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will make sure law enforcement and communities have the resources that they need to bring down opioid overdoses and deaths, and they will ensure those profiting at the expense of American lives are held accountable. They will:
Surge additional support to the border and law enforcement agencies who are on the front lines of the fight to keep fentanyl out.
Boost drug enforcement staff at the border, including by increasing the number of Customs and Border Protection Officers to effectively screen entrants and cargo for illegal drugs and give Homeland Security Investigations agents the power to investigate drug trafficking across the United States.
Equip our agents and officers with next-generation technologies to make them more effective at blocking fentanyl at the border. In her first budget request, she will fund the acquisition and deployment of over 100 new, non-intrusive inspection (NII) systems to scan passenger and commercial vehicles at ports of entry crossing the U.S.-Mexico Border, as called for in the Bipartisan Border Bill that Trump blocked. And she will scale up the use of advanced computing across all U.S. ports of entry, including the U.S.-Mexico border, airports, and seaports to detect and disrupt fentanyl entering the United States via cars, packages, and shipments.
Crack down harder on those profiting from fentanyl.
Strengthen federal laws regulating pill presses that cartels and transnational criminal organizations rely on to produce fentanyl-laced fake pills that resemble traditional pharmaceuticals. Vice President Harris will work with Congress to strengthen pill press registration laws so law enforcement officials can track these devices and illegal uses. She will also work to increase the penalties for possessing an unregistered pill press with the intent to manufacture counterfeit fentanyl-laced pills—which currently carries a maximum penalty of only four years imprisonment.
Continue to push China and others to do more to crack down on companies that make the precursor chemicals for fentanyl, building on the work of the Biden-Harris Administration to shut down the companies that make those chemicals. She will use both sanctions and criminal indictments to deter and punish illegal fentanyl or precursor chemical production.
Double the Justice Department’s budget for prosecuting transnational criminal organizations and cartels, which will also target their fentanyl smuggling operations.
Vice President Harris will work to advance solutions to fix our broken immigration system.
Leverage humanitarian parole visas and other visa categories to take pressure off our border. Vice President Harris will continue to use legal pathways for those who apply far from our southern border and qualify for admission under our laws. For example, providing humanitarian parole visas to select immigrants has been shown to substantially lower illegal immigration.
Create an earned pathway to citizenship for longtime immigrants. The most durable and permanent solution for undocumented immigrants who are deeply rooted in the United States is to enact bipartisan legislation. Vice President Harris strongly supports an earned pathway to citizenship for those who have lived and worked in America for many years, and stands ready to work with members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to pass legislation to create a clear process for vetting, qualifying and recognizing those who are contributing members of our communities.
Protect Dreamers and other longtime immigrants. If Republicans continue to balk at bipartisan legislation, Vice President Harris will work to keep families together, give Dreamers a chance to remain in the nation they grew up in, recognize the essential work of farm workers who feed us, and more. Immigrants who have lived and worked in America, often for decades, need paths to stability and legal status to remain with their families and to continue contributing to the nation they now call home.
Vice President Harris will improve our legal immigration system. Currently, the system is not working for our workers, businesses, or families. Delays and outdated procedures result in the loss of innovation and talent that can help drive our economy and communities forward. Vice President Harris will work to modernize our system by making sure we are protecting American workers while increasing our competitiveness and fueling economic growth.
Help American communities welcome new arrivals by continuing to provide impact aid to support local communities adjusting to newly arriving immigrants, continuing to support the private-public partnership that has successfully resettled refugees for over 50 years, and responsibly engaging private citizens as sponsors for those admitted on parole visas.
She will pay for this plan by making the super wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.
It infuriates me when people say “what has Kamala Harris done as Vice President? What is her plan for the economy? ” when in fact, they typically are willfully ignorant.
In a major address in Pittsburgh laying out her vision for the economy and her economic philosophy, Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to “grow America’s middle class” and build an “opportunity economy” focused on lowering costs, investing in innovation, and winning the industries and creating the manufacturing jobs of the future.
She contrasted her optimistic vision to build the middle class, which she grew up in, with Donald Trump’s plan to look out only for himself and billionaires like him. Trump “has no intention of growing our middle class. He’s only interested in making life better for himself,” she said. “For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors.
“I have a different vision for our economy,” she declared. “I believe we need to grow our middle class.”
Here is an edited and highlighted transcript of Harris’ remarks and a fact sheet provided by the Harris-Walz campaign:– Karen Rubin, [email protected]
We gather at a moment of great consequence.
In this election, we have an extraordinary opportunity.
To make our middle class the engine of America’s prosperity.
To build a stronger economy where everyone has a chance to chase their dreams and aspirations.
And to ensure that the United States of America continues to out-innovate and out-compete the world.
Over the past three and a half years, we have taken major steps forward to recover from the public health and economic crisis we inherited.
Inflation has dropped faster here than the rest of the developed world.
Unemployment is near record lows.
We have created almost 740 thousand manufacturing jobs—including 650 at the battery manufacturing plant over in Turtle Creek.
And we have supported another 15 thousand jobs at Montgomery Locks.
Last week, for the first time in four and a half years, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates, which will make it a little easier for families to buy a home. Or a car. Or pay down their credit card bill.
But let’s be clear: for all these positive steps, the cost of living in America is still too high.
You know it, and I know it.
And that was true long before the pandemic hit.
Many Americans who aspire to own a home are unable to save enough for a down payment on a house. And starting to think that maybe home ownership isn’t within their reach.
Folks who live in factory towns and rural communities who have lost jobs, are wondering if those jobs will ever come back.
Many Americans are worried about how they’ll afford the prescription drugs they depend on.
And all of this is happening at a time when many of the biggest corporations continue to make record profits while wages haven’t kept pace.
I understand the pressures of making ends meet.
I grew up in a middle class family…
Every day, millions of Americans are sitting around their own kitchen tables. And facing their own financial pressures.
Because over the past several decades, our economy has grown better and better for those at the very top. And increasingly difficult for those trying to attain, build and hold on to a middle-class life.
In many ways, that is what this election is about.
The American people face a choice between two fundamentally different paths for our economy.
I want to chart a New Way Forward. And grow America’s middle class.
Donald Trump intends to take America backward. To the failed policies of the past.
He has no intention of growing our middle class.
He’s only interested in making life better for himself.
And people like himself. The wealthiest of Americans.
You can see it spelled out in his economic agenda.
An agenda that gives trillions of dollars in tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations. While raising taxes on the middle class by almost $4,000 a year. Slashing overtime pay. Throwing tens of millions of Americans off health care. And cutting Social Security and Medicare.
In sum, his agenda would weaken the economy and hurt working- and middle-class people.
For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers.
Not those who build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors.
Well, I have a different vision for our economy.
I believe we need to grow our middle class and make sure our economy works for everyone.
For people like those in the neighborhood where I grew up. And the hardworking Americans I meet across our nation.
I call my vision, the Opportunity Economy.
And it’s about making sure everyone can find a job and more.
I want working Americans and families to be able to not just get by. But be able to get ahead. To thrive.
I don’t want you to have to worry about making your monthly rent if your car breaks down.
I want you to be able to save up for your child’s education.
Take a vacation once in a while.
And buy Christmas presents for your loved ones without feeling anxious looking at your bank account. I want you to be able to build up some wealth.
Not just for yourself. But for your children and grandchildren. And here’s the thing.
We know how to build an economy like that.
We know how to unlock strong, shared economic growth for the American people.
History has shown it. Time and again.
When we invest in those things that strengthen the middle class—manufacturing, housing, health care, education, small businesses, and our communities—we grow our economy and catalyze the entire country to succeed.
I have pledged that building a strong middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.
And the reason is not about politics or ideology. It’s just common sense.It’s what works.
When the middle class is strong, America is strong.
And we can build a stronger middle class.
The American economy is the most powerful force for innovation and wealth creation in human history. We just need to move beyond the failed policies of the past.
And, like generations before us, be inspired by what’s possible.
As President, I’ll be grounded in my fundamental values of fairness. Dignity. And opportunity.
And pragmatic in my approach.
I’ll engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called “bold, persistent experimentation.”
I believe we shouldn’t be constrained by ideology.
We should seek practical solutions to problems. Realistic assessments of what’s working and what’s not.
And stay focused. Not only on the crises at hand. But on our big goals.
On what’s best for America over the long term.
And part of being pragmatic means taking good ideas from wherever they come.
I am a devout public servant. And I also know the limitations of government.
I’ve always been and always will be a strong supporter of workers and unions.
I also believe we need to engage those who create most of the jobs in America.
Look, I am a capitalist. I believe in free and fair markets.
And consistent and transparent rules of the road to create a stable business environment.
And I know the power of American innovation.
I’ve been working with entrepreneurs and business owners my whole career.
And. I believe companies need to play by the rules. Respect the rights of workers and unions. And abide by fair competition.
If they don’t, I will hold them accountable.
And if anyone has any doubt about that, just look at my record as Attorney General in California.
Taking on: Big banks for predatory lending. Big health care companies for conspiring to jack up prices. And big, for-profit colleges for scamming veterans and students.
At the same time, I believe that most companies are working hard to do right by their customers and the employees who depend on them.
And we must work with them to grow our economy.
I believe an active partnership between government and the private sector is one of the most effective ways to fully unlock economic opportunity.
And that’s what we will do when I am President.
We will target the major barriers to opportunity.
And remove them.
We will identify common sense solutions to help Americans buy a home.
Start a business. And build wealth.
And we will adopt them.
Let’s start with the first pillar of the Opportunity Economy.
Lowering costs.
I made that our top priority because if we want the middle class to be the growth engine of our economy, we need to restore basic economic security for middle class families.
To that end, the most practical thing we can do right now is to cut taxes for the middle class.
So that’s what we will do.
Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans will get a middle class tax break.
That includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of a child’s life. To help families cover everything from car seats to cribs.
And we’ll also cut the cost of childcare and elder care.
And finally give all working people access to paid leave.
Which will help everyone caring for children, caring for aging parents, and the sandwich generation caring for both.
I have personal experience with caregiving. I remember being there for my mother when she was diagnosed with cancer. Cooking meals for her. Taking her to her appointments. Trying to make her comfortable. And telling her stories.
I know caregiving is about dignity.
And when we lower the costs, and ease the burdens people face. We not only make it easier for them to meet their obligations as caregivers. We also make it more possible for them to go to work, and pursue their economic aspirations.
And when that happens, our economy as a whole grows stronger.
Now, middle class tax cuts are just the start of my plan.
We will also go after the biggest drivers of costs for the middle class. And work to bring them down.
One of those big costs is housing.
So here is what we will do.
We will cut the red tape that stops homes from being built.
Take on corporate landlords who are hiking rental prices.
And work with builders and developers to construct 3 million new homes and rentals for the middle class.
Because increasing the housing supply will help drive down the cost of housing.
We will also help first-time homebuyers get their foot in the door with a $25,000 down payment assistance.
So more Americans can afford to buy a home. A critical step in building wealth.
And we will work to reduce other big costs for middle class families.
We will take on bad actors who exploit emergencies to drive up grocery prices. By enacting the first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging.
And take on Big Pharma to cap the cost of prescription drugs for all Americans.
Just like we did for seniors.
By contrast, Donald Trump has no intention of lowering costs for the middle class.
In fact, his economic agenda would actually raise prices.
And that’s not just my opinion.
A survey of top economists by the Financial Times and University of Chicago found that by an overwhelming 70 to 3 percent margin, my plan would be better for keeping inflation low.
The second pillar of the Opportunity Economy isinvesting in American innovation and entrepreneurship.
For the last century, the United States of America has been a beacon around the world.
Not only for our ability to come up with some of the most breakthrough ideas.
But our ability to turn those ideas into some of the most consequential innovations the world has ever known.
I believe the source of our success is the ingenuity, dynamism, and enter-prising spirit of the American people.
To paraphrase Warren Buffett: Since our founding as a nation, “there has been no incubator for unleashing human potential like America.”
And we need to guard that spirit.
Including by solving the problems that small business owners face.
As I travel the country, what I hear time and again from those who own small businesses, and those who aspire to start them, is that too often, an entrepreneur has a great idea.
And the willingness to take the risk.
But they don’t have access to the capital to make it real.
Well, we can make it easier for them to access capital.
On average, it costs about $40,000 to start a new business. But currently, the tax deduction for startup costs is only $5,000.
In 2024, it’s almost impossible to start a business on $5,000.
That’s why, as President, I will make the startup deduction ten times richer.
We will raise it from $5,000 to $50,000.
And provide low- and no-interest loans to small businesses that want to expand.
All of which will help achieve our ambitious goal of 25 million new small business applications by the end of my first term.
Small businesses help drive our economy.
They create nearly 50 percent of private sector jobs. And they strengthen our middle class.
And if we can harness the entrepreneurialism of the American people, and unlock the full potential of aspiring founders, and small business owners, I am optimistic no one will ever outpace us.
By contrast, when Donald Trump was President, one of the nation’s leading experts on small businesses published a piece in a major paper. The title, “Does Donald Trump hate small businesses?” Their answer was yes.
Because at the same time Donald Trump was giving a tax cut to big corporations and billionaires, he tried to slash programs for small businesses.
And raise borrowing costs for them.
Instead of making it easier, he actually made it more difficult for them to access capital.
And that’s not surprising.
Because Donald Trump does not prioritize small businesses. He does not seem to value the essential role they play.
Well, when I look at small business owners, I see some of the heroes of our economy.
Not only entrepreneurs.
But civic leaders.
I see the glue that holds our communities together.
The third pillar of the Opportunity Economy is leading the world in the industries of the future.
And making sure America—not China—wins the competition for the 21st Century.
One of the recurring themes of American history is that when we make an intentional effort to invest in our industrial strength, it leads to extraordinary prosperity and security.
Not only for years. But for generations.
Think of Alexander Hamilton having the foresight to build the manufacturing capabilities of our new nation.
Lincoln and the transcontinental railroad.
Eisenhower and the interstate highway system.
Kennedy, committing America to win the space race and spurring innovation across our society.
From our earliest days, America’s economic strength has been tied to our industrial strength.
The same is true today.
So, I will recommit the nation. To global leadership in the sectors that will define the next century.
We will invest in biomanufacturing and aerospace.
Remain dominant in AI, quantum computing, blockchain, and other emerging technologies.
Expand our lead in clean energy innovation and manufacturing.
So the next generation of breakthroughs—from advanced batteries to geothermal to advanced nuclear—are not just invented, but built here in America by American workers.
And we will invest in the industries that made Pittsburgh the Steel City, by offering tax credits for expanding good union jobs, in steel, iron, and manufacturing communities like here in Mon Valley.
And across all these industries of the future, we will prioritize investments for:
Strengthening factory towns. Retooling existing factories. Hiring locally. And working with unions.
Because no one who grows up in America’s greatest industrial or agricultural centers should be abandoned.
And here is what else we will do when I am President.
We will double the number of registered apprenticeships by the end of my first term.
Eliminate degree requirements while increasing skills development for half a million federal jobs.
And challenge our private sector to make a similar commitment to emphasizing skills, not just degrees.
We will reform our tax laws to make it easier for businesses to let workers share in their company’s success.
And I will challenge the private sector to do more to lift up workers through equity, profits, and benefits. So more people can share in America’s success.
Not only must we build the industries of the future in America.
We must build them faster.
The simple truth is, in America, it takes too long and costs too much to build.
Whether it’s a new housing development, a new factory, or a new bridge, projects take too long to go from concept to reality.
It happens in blue states and red states. And it’s a national problem.
I will tell you this. China is not moving slowly. And we can’t afford to, either.
As President, if things are not moving quickly, I will demand to know why.
And I will act. I will work with Congress, workers and businesses, cities and states, community groups and local leaders, to reform permitting.
Cut red tape. And get things moving faster.
Patience may be a virtue. But not when it comes to job creation. Or America’s competitiveness.
The Empire State Building was built in a year.
The Pentagon, 16 months.
No one can tell me we can’t build quickly in our country.
Now, Donald Trump makes big promises on manufacturing.
Just yesterday, he went out and promised to bring back manufacturing jobs.
If that sounds familiar, it should. In 2016, he went out and made that very same promise about the Carrier plant in Indianapolis. You’ll remember, Carrier then offshored hundreds of jobs to Mexico under his watch.
And it wasn’t just there. On Trump’s watch, offshoring went up, and manufacturing jobs went down across our economy.
All told, almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during his presidency, starting before the pandemic hit.
Making Trump one of the biggest losers ever on manufacturing.
Donald Trump also talked a big game on our trade deficit with China. But it is far lower under our watch, than any year of his Administration.
While he constantly got played by China, I will never hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of the road at the expense of our workers, our communities, and our companies—whether it’s flooding the market with steel.
Unfairly subsidizing ship-building. Or hurting our small businesses with counterfeits.
Recall Donald Trump actually shipped advanced semiconductor chips to China to upgrade their military.
I will never sell out America to our competitors or adversaries.
I will always make sure we have the strongest economy and most lethal fighting force of any nation in the world.
At this pivotal moment, we have an extraordinary opportunity. To chart a New Way Forward. One that positions the United States of America—and all of us blessed to call this home—for success and prosperity in the 21st Century.
There is an old saying, that “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Well, that is the story of the Steel City.
The city that helped: Build the middle class. Birth America’s labor movement. And power the rise of American manufacturing.
And the city where Allen Newell and Herbert Simon launched the first AI research hub at Carnegie Mellon.
And created entirely new fields. Like machine learning. And Carnegie Mellon is now home to the largest university robotics center in America.
The proud heritage of Pittsburgh reveals the character of our nation.
A nation that harnesses the ambitions, dreams, and aspirations of our people.
Seizes the opportunities before us. And invents the future.
That is what we have always done. And that is what we must do now.
New Independent Economic Analysis Finds Trump Plan Will Lead to ‘Permanently Higher Inflation’
The Peterson Institute for International Economics: “Manufacturing taking the biggest hits—the opposite of Trump’s stated goals”
“Does more damage to the US economy than to any other in the world”
In contrast to Harris’ defined plan for sustainable economic growth, yet another independent economic analysis concludes that Donald Trump’s second term agenda would send inflation skyrocketing, crush growth, and eliminate American jobs.
Key findings:
“Scenarios combining individual policies show that the changes cause a large inflationary impulse and a significant loss of employment (particularly in manufacturing and agriculture) in the US economy.”
“We find that ironically, despite his ‘make the foreigners pay’ rhetoric, this package of policies does more damage to the US economy than to any other in the world. They result in lower US national income, lower employment, and higher inflation than otherwise. In some cases, foreign countries benefit from the inflow of capital leaving the United States.”
“Both of Trump’s tariff plans—imposing 10 percentage point additional tariffs on US imports from all sources and 60 percentage point tariffs on imports from China—hurt US GDP and employment by 2028, with or without retaliation by trading partners. But the effects vary by sector, with durable manufacturing taking the biggest hits—the opposite of Trump’s stated goals.”
“Figure 41 shows that the permanently higher inflation leads to ever-increasing prices across the US economy with some relative price shifts, particularly for the energy and mining sectors relative to services in the early period of adjustments. By 2040, prices across the economy are roughly 41 percent higher than the baseline.”
“Figure 44 shows that inflation peaks between 4.1 and 7.4 percentage points above baseline by 2026. If baseline inflation is 1.9 percent, the peak will be between 6 and 9.3 percent. Inflation stays permanently above baseline by 2 percentage points because the Fed’s loss of independence does not boost the economy’s supply side.”
This new study from the Peterson Institute for International Economics adds to a clear consensus among economists – manyconservative-leaning – that Donald Trump’s plans would devastate the American economy and the middle class.
“Donald Trump will not just impose a $4,000 a year middle class tax hike – his plan will permanently jack up inflation, crush American manufacturing jobs, and hurt manufacturing workers more than any other sector,” stated Harris-Walz 2024 Spokesperson Joseph Costello. “Over and over, independent economists are warning of the economic dangers of Trump’s plan, and Americans should take note. This is a fundamental contrast with Vice President Harris, who has a plan to lower costs and create economic opportunity for the middle class, including major investments in creating the manufacturing jobs of the future.”
The campaign provided more from CNN’s breakdown of the study:
The Trump agenda would cause weaker economic growth, higher inflation and lower employment, according to a working paper released Thursday by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In some cases, the damage could continue through 2040.
The paper represents the most comprehensive analysis to date on the combined impact of Trump’s trade, immigration and Fed proposals.
In that scenario, employment would be 9% lower than baseline by 2028 and inflation would surge to 9.3% by 2026. GDP would be 9.7% lower than otherwise.
The Peterson Institute research finds that Trump’s tariff and other plans would backfire – hurting manufacturing more than any sector. That means the same factory workers Trump says he is trying to help would be hurt the most.
“If other countries retaliate, as many likely would, a recession in the year after the increase in tariffs would be a serious threat,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNN in an email.
The paper found that erosion of Fed independence would cause higher inflation, capital outflows, a significant loss of value for the US dollar and higher unemployment – all of which would “worsen American living standards.”
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who was nominated by Trump in 2017, cautioned against any effort to interfere with Fed independence.
CHICAGO – Today, Democrats announced the themes that will guide programming through the four nights of the convention and the 16 different platforms Americans can use to watch the convention. The themes are: “For the People, For Our Future.” The convention will further introduce Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz to the nation and lay out their bold vision for America, including how they will fight for people, our freedoms, and our future.
Since the outset of convention planning, Democrats have been building the stage for our nominees to tell their story to America. Bringing back beloved elements of in-person conventions while building on the success of 2020’s innovative programming, the convention will tap into the growing energy and coalition behind the Harris-Walz ticket to reach more Americans wherever they are.
“Our convention is an opportunity to bring the story of our party to the American people — not just the story of what we’ve achieved under the Biden-Harris administration, but how the Harris-Walz ticket is planning to build on that historic record for a new way forward into the future,” said Convention Chair Minyon Moore. “The story here is simple and it’s one that will resonate with Americans across the country: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are fighting for the American people and America’s future — Donald Trump is only fighting for himself.”
The convention will take place over four nights from Monday, August 19 – Thursday, August 22, 2024. Convention programming will air live from the United Center in Chicago between 6:15-11 PM Eastern/5:15-10 PM Central on Monday, and 7-11 PM Eastern/6-10 PM Central for all other days. Over the course of those four nights, programming centered around the following thematics will bring the story of the Democratic party and our nominees to the American people.
Monday, August 19: For the People – While Donald Trump puts himself first, Democrats are fighting for the American people. President Biden has exemplified this through his leadership and legacy as a historic president who put the American people’s interest above his own. The accomplishments and results President Biden delivered for people, with Vice President Harris by his side, will be on full display during the convention, as will Kamala Harris’s commitment to fighting on behalf of everyday Americans. At its core, the Harris-Walz ticket is a ticket for the people.
Tuesday, August 20: A Bold Vision for America’s Future – This race isn’t just a choice between two candidates. It’s a choice between two very different visions of America. While Donald Trump believes our best days are behind us, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz know the best days lie ahead. Standing in stark contrast to the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda designed to take us backwards, the Harris-Walz ticket presents a brighter vision where everyone will have a chance not just to get by, but to get ahead.
Wednesday, August 21: A Fight for Our Freedoms – Vice President Harris has spent her entire career fighting for Americans’ freedoms. In Governor Tim Walz, Vice President Harris chose as her running mate a champion for America’s working families and a staunch defender of those same fundamental freedoms. Donald Trump spent his four years in office fighting to strip our rights away, and he’s once again running on an extreme agenda to go even farther in turning back the clock on all the freedoms we hold dear.
Thursday, August 22: For Our Future – America can’t afford to put Donald Trump back in the White House — because a second Trump term would be even more dangerous and more extreme than the first one. But the choice we face in November isn’t just about us versus Donald Trump. This election is a fight for the future. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will lead America into a brighter, more hopeful era.
16 Ways to Watch the Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) announced that it will stream the 2024 Democratic National Convention on over a dozen platforms – more than ever before – as part of its efforts to reach Americans everywhere they are. For the first time in convention history, the convention will host vertical streams across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. These cutting edge vertical streaming platforms will allow Americans to tune into the convention on their mobile devices and see the convention alongside the millions of Americans who will be watching from home.
With an unprecedented number of ways to tune in, this year’s convention will engage voters in new, innovative ways, meeting viewers wherever they are and however they choose to watch.
Primetime convention programming will air live from the United Center in Chicago from 6:30-11 p.m. Eastern/5:30-10 p.m. Central on Monday and 7-11 p.m. Eastern/6-10 p.m. Central on Tuesday-Thursday.
“The convention team set out with an ambitious goal of reaching more Americans than ever before, and today’s announcement is yet another milestone in our mission to broadcast Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz’s story to all Americans,” said DNCC Executive Director Alex Hornbrook. “With more and more Americans consuming their news in new and innovative ways, Democrats stand ready to meet them where they are – and to bring our vision for a brighter future to households all across the country.”
To ensure the Democratic Convention is the most accessible in history, the DNCC will offer a range of accessible viewing options. The program will be available with English and Spanish language audio, along with corresponding captions in both languages, opening up the convention to a broader range of audiences. Additionally, the DNCC will provide American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and audio description services to streaming partners, ensuring that all attendees can experience the convention fully and inclusively.
The official live stream of the 2024 Democratic National Convention will be available at DemConvention.com. On the website, visitors will also be able to find the complete convention schedule and resources for viewers, delegates, and the media, as well as further plans and details.
In addition to the DemConvention.com livestream and traditional broadcasts, the DNCC is working with streaming partners to broadcast and house convention content on a range of platforms, to bring the full broadcast live and on-demand to Americans all across the country.
