Policy
“You are not just leaders in business. You are leaders in civil society,” Harris said. She added: “You are part of the glue and the fabric that holds communities together.”
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign stop at Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, NH, Wednesday, September 4, 2024. AP Photo/Steven Senne
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris used a campaign stop in New Hampshire Wednesday to propose an expansion of tax incentives for small businesses, a pro-entrepreneur plan that could soften her previous calls for wealthy Americans and big corporations to pay higher taxes.
Describing small businesses as “a critical foundation for our entire economy,” Harris said she wants to expand tax incentives from $5,000 to $50,000 for start-up expenses, with a goal of ultimately spurring 25 million new small business applications over four years.
The speech is part of Harris’ efforts to bolster her economic credentials with just two months left before the election.
“You are not just leaders in business. You are leaders in civil society,” Harris said. She added: “You are part of the glue and the fabric that holds communities together.”
Harris spoke at Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, outside Portsmouth, and met with co-founders Annette Lee and Nicole Carrier. Their brewery received support from a small business loan to open its current location and installed solar panels through federal programs supported by the Biden administration, according to the Harris campaign.
The campaign for Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican nominee, has dismissed Harris’ small business plan, noting that the vice president has promised to eliminate a set of tax cuts approved during his administration that are set to expire next year. The Trump campaign said the cuts “allow business owners to deduct up to 20% of their qualified business income,” reduce taxes on new equipment purchases and take steps to support small businesses over larger ones.
Before talking about small businesses, Harris addressed Wednesday’s school shooting in Georgia.
“It’s just outrageous that every day in our country, in the United States, parents have to send their children to school worrying about whether their child will come home alive or not.”
She added: “We have to put a stop to this. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Harris’ trip to New Hampshire is a rare departure for a candidate who spends most of her time in the Midwest and Sun Belt states that play a central role in the November election.
Since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Harris, the vice president has focused on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which were centerpieces of successful Democratic campaigns. She has also made frequent trips to Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, all three of which Biden narrowly won in 2020, as well as North Carolina, which she hopes to swing away from Trump.
Wednesday’s stop comes after Harris celebrated Labor Day with rallies Monday in Detroit and Pittsburgh and before she returns to Pittsburgh Thursday — marking her 10th visit to Pennsylvania in 2024.
Trump has called for lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%, a break with Biden, who in his March budget proposal suggested setting the corporate tax rate at 28%. Harris has released relatively few major policy proposals in the six weeks since she took over the Democratic ticket, but has not suggested she plans to diverge significantly from his administration on tax policy.
Harris’ small business action plan has many elements that appeal to the business community. But it contrasts with another proposal Harris unveiled last month, in which she promised to fight inflation by cracking down on “price gouging” by food producers, which she said had driven up grocery prices unnecessarily.
Harris built her campaign around calls for growth and strengthening the country’s middle class — and suggested that wealthy Americans and big corporations should “pay their fair share” in higher taxes.
Both candidates will use the week before their debate to hone their economic messages about who can do more for the middle class. Trump will address the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.
Biden, who built his campaign around promoting the middle class, won New Hampshire by 7 percentage points in 2020, but Trump came much closer to beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. Harris’ campaign says it has 17 field offices operating in coordination with the state Democratic Party in New Hampshire, compared to just one for Trump’s campaign.
Some Democrats in the state were angry that Biden had directed the Democratic National Committee to make South Carolina the first state to vote in the party’s presidential primaries this year — replacing the Iowa caucus and a first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire that was held in more than a century.
Despite this, New Hampshire decided to hold an unauthorized primary. Although Biden did not campaign or appear on the ballot, he still won easily thanks to a vote-by-mail campaign.
Trump took advantage of the change in the primary calendar to declare on his social media account that Harris “sees that there are problems for her campaign in New Hampshire because they didn’t respect her in their primaries and never showed up.”
“Furthermore, the cost of living in New Hampshire is exorbitant, energy bills are among the highest in the nation, and the housing market is the most unaffordable in history,” the former president wrote. “I protected New Hampshire’s first primary and I ALWAYS will.”
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