Kamala Harris unveils new economic plans in Pittsburgh speech

Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled several new economic proposals aimed at wooing voters in struggling former industrial hubs during a speech at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

Harris has pledged to enact tax credits to encourage steelmaking and investment in other traditional industries, double the number of trade apprentices within a year of her election and reform to speed up construction in America.

She did it all while slamming the policies her campaign wants to make part of her candidacy: a federal ban on corporate rate hikes, building more affordable housing and expanding access to capital for entrepreneurs.

And, the vice president got personal, contrasting her middle-class upbringing with former President Donald Trump, whose business career was initially forged with a loan from his wealthy father.

“No one growing up in America’s largest industrial or agricultural centers should be left behind,” Harris said. “We don’t have to give up a power we’ve known to get a power we plan.”

This was Harris’ 14th visit this year to Pennsylvania, both swing states candidates named everything but necessary to win the presidency.

Trump gave a similar, manufacturing-focused speech in Georgia on Tuesday. But Harris’ speech, delivered in the Commonwealth, was of special importance to Pennsylvania.

Here are some of the key takeaways from her address in Pittsburgh.

More Pennsylvanians trust Trump on the economy. Harris wants to change that.

Polling data has consistently shown Trump leading with voters on economic issues, even as Harris closes the gap with President Joe Biden.

From the start of the roughly 40-minute speech, Harris drew a clear line of demarcation between her policies and those of Trump. Harris did it by getting personal, emphasizing his middle-class roots.

“I still remember my mom sitting at that yellow Formica table … with a pile of bills in front of her, just trying to make sure she paid them by the end of the month,” Harris said at the start of the speech. “Every day, millions of Americans sit around the kitchen table and face their own financial pressures.”

Harris framed his so-called opportunity economy in three pillars: reducing costs, stimulating entrepreneurship and small business, and investing in manufacturing. In every pillar of her plan, Harris hammered Trump on his own policies and proposals while casting himself as the down-to-earth candidate.

When talking about health care costs, Harris recounted taking care of her own mother, who was dying of cancer.

Discussing her plan for small businesses and entrepreneurs, Harris expressed her intention to expand the small business tax credit to $50,000, while saying Trump’s tax plan benefits the wealthiest. And Harris accused Trump of offshoring manufacturing jobs during his presidency.

An analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the left-leaning Keystone Research Center shows that Pennsylvania lost 23,000 manufacturing jobs during Trump’s four years as president.

After the Teamsters refused, Harris went all-in with her appeal to unions

As she presented a new proposal to provide tax credits for traditional manufacturing companies, she touted the potential creation of “good union jobs in steel and iron.”

“I always have been and always will be a strong supporter of workers and unions,” Harris said.

Her comments come after a back-and-forth saga with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and its regional conferences, which represent 1.3 million truck drivers, warehouse and health care workers and other public employees such as teachers across the country.

The general organization chose not to endorse a presidential candidate, while the Pennsylvania Teamsters Conference, which represents 95,000 members, Harris argued, despite polling data suggesting stronger member support for Trump. Trump saw the disapproval of the union as a victory for his own campaign.

While laying out his vision for strengthening the manufacturing sector, Harris appealed to union workers. She joked that she had tried to visit every union hall of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and remarked about the union’s apprenticeship programs, which she described as highly technical.

Harris took the time to re-emphasize his goal of eliminating degree requirements for 500,000 federal government jobs and encouraging private businesses to emphasize skills.

Presidents Trump and Joe Biden have both moved to remove degree requirements from federal government jobs.

Harris tries to balance calls to the Steel City with the green economy

Harris’ production policy was revealing in both what it said and what it avoided saying.

She promoted an expansion of “clean energy innovation and production” while specifically pledging to create steel and iron jobs.

“We’re going to invest in the industries that made Pittsburgh the city of steel,” Harris said, before first proposing the tax credit to create steel and iron jobs.

Harris balanced his commitment to support more familiar manufacturing industries with the Biden-Harris administration’s Inflation Relief Act, which helped fund clean energy projects. Federal funding helped add 650 jobs at a nearby zinc battery plant, she said.

She also didn’t mention fracking, a notable omission in the state that ranks No. 2 in natural gas production. Trump has repeatedly attacked Harris for her support for a ban in 2019, a position she has disavowed.

Harris closed his remarks by talking about the “Steel City story” as one that invented the future of the U.S. economy, hearing the idea that the region could be at the forefront of the clean energy economy while also promising to add traditional manufacturing jobs.

She called Pittsburgh “the city that helped build the middle class, birth America’s labor movement, and power the rise of American manufacturing.”