Kamala Harris on Welfare & Poverty Democratic candidate for President (withdrawn); California Senator

First-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on food

Opportunity agenda: bring the cost of rent & mortgage down

MURPHY: The Vice President roll out several very important detailed policy proposals. She just proposed a massive tax cut for small businesses. She's proposed a massive investment in housing to bring the cost of rent and mortgages down for Americans. She's going to go after price gougers to try to make sure that we continue to drive inflation down. She wants an expansion of the child tax credit. She's investing in the middle class. So I don't doubt that Kamala Harris will continue to roll out proposals to invest in small businesses, to invest in the middle class. I think the contrast is pretty striking between a candidate on the Democratic side who wants to make sure that we grow the economy from the middle out.

Build 3m new homes; $25,000 downpayment credits

Her plan is light on details: the construction funding (she targets $40bn) would go to local governments, who would need to find their own solutions. Meanwhile, other elements would cut against her ambitious supply targets. She vows to go after Wall Street investors, whom she decries as "buying up and marking up homes in bulk". They actually own less than 1% of America's single-family homes, and have been building, rather than just buying, homes. Another pledge--one that received loud applause when she unveiled it in a speech in North Carolina on August 16th--is to give first-time homebuyers $25,000 towards downpayments on mortgages. With demand for homes still outstripping supply, extra cash of this kind may just translate into higher prices.

$5.5B in grants for homeownership and renter protections

The Vice President announced a crucial infusion of funds to address the country's critical housing needs: $5.5 billion in grants to 1,200 communities through more than 2,400 grants. These grants build on ongoing efforts by the Administration, the White House Housing Supply Action Plan and the Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights, boost housing supply, lower housing costs, expand rental assistance, enhance renter protections, and invest in stronger, more resilient communities.

"Homeownership is an essential part of the American Dream that represents so much more than a roof over our heads. For people all across our nation, a home represents financial security, the opportunity to build wealth and equity," said Vice President Harris.

$185 million to remove barriers to affordable housing

So, today, we are investing $85 million, with another $100 million later, to help more than 20 cities remove these barriers. One such barrier is that it can be difficult for affordable housing developers to be able to afford to buy and develop land. To address this, in Milwaukee, our investment will help the city provides subsidies to builders to help them develop vacant lots and abandoned buildings into affordable housing.

Another barrier that often limits building is insufficient infrastructure. For example, in Denver, there are plots of land available but not yet connected to the electric grid. Through this investment, we will help Denver offer loans to developers to build the power lines and water mains that are necessary for new housing.

Use the tax code to alleviate homelessness

HARRIS: Part of what I plan to do is through the tax code, so that if anyone is spending more than 30 percent of their income in rent plus utilities, you get a tax credit. And part of my plan is to create grants for people who live in federally subsidized housing or in historically red-lined communities to give them down payments and closing costs for homeownership. And then we need to create incentives for affordable housing.

Massively expand the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit)

FOUR CANDIDATES HAVE SIMILAR VIEWS: Cory Booker; John Delaney; John Hickenlooper; Amy Klobuchar.

Harris is calling for a massive expansion of the EITC, including nearly doubling the income cutoff for eligibility. Hickenlooper and Delaney want to double the EITC. Delaney also wants to make it available to people without children. Booker would increase EITC income eligibility level from $54k to $90k, boost the credit for childless workers.

Subsidies for Affordable Housing renters and homeowners

Sen. Kamala Harris has introduced legislation to create a new tax credit for renters who spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, capped at the fair-market rent for the area and scaled to the renter's income. She has also proposed a new $100 billion plan to close the racial wealth gap by providing down payment and closing cost assistance to people renting or living in historically red-lined neighborhoods.

LIFT Act and Rent Relief: $42 billion to people in poverty

The Rent Relief Act ($93 billion a year) would offer a refundable tax credit to people making $100,000 or less and spending at least 30% of their income on rent. The credit would be worth a certain percentage of the difference between their rent and 30% of their income. For the poorest renters, the credit would cover the full difference; for slightly less poor renters, 75%, and so on.

The LIFT Act Rent Relief Act would provide $42 billion to people in poverty.

Homeowner Bill of Rights: no foreclosure during negotiations

Ending the foreclosure crisis has become Harris' signature issue. She often visits hard-hit neighborhoods. "You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them," Harris said. She successfully pushed through a first-of-its-kind Homeowner Bill of Rights. It requires banks to provide a single point of contact for California homeowners and stop the practice of dual tracking, in which lenders move ahead with a foreclosure, even while they're negotiating with the homeowner to modify a loan. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law this month.

Harris has taken on the country's biggest banks before, suing them for foreclosure abuses. Harris got $18 billion with $12 billion of that amount going toward helping underwater homeowners.

Tenants not named in foreclosure can stop eviction process