Vice President Kamala Harris wants voters to know she’s not a socialist.
That was a clear and implicit theme of Ms. Harris’ nearly 40-minute economic policy speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, as she paraphrased Warren Buffett, cited research from leading economists and praised entrepreneurs in language reminiscent of Republican Sen. Mitt Romney’s presidential run 12 years ago.
Ms. Harris is in a tight presidential race against former President Donald J. Trump. Polls show the economy remains a top issue in the race, with many undecided voters concerned about whether Ms. Harris can turn it around. Mr. Trump has tried to accuse Ms. Harris of being a socialist, if not a communist. Polls suggest those attacks have left some swing voters questioning how she would use government power to manage the economy.
So in what was billed as a major economic speech with just weeks left in the campaign, Ms. Harris sought to dispel those doubts. In staid, technical language likely designed to appeal to voters skeptical of the government’s ability to solve major economic problems, Ms. Harris portrayed herself as a defender of capitalism and a pragmatist who would not govern by ideology.
Speaking to business leaders and entrepreneurs gathered at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, Harris pledged to build an economy based on “fairness, dignity and opportunity” and powered by a growing middle class.
“I am committed to taking a pragmatic approach,” she said. “I intend to engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called ‘bold and persistent experimentation,’ because I believe we should not be beholden to ideology but rather to practical solutions to problems, realistic assessments of what is working and what is not, applying metrics to our analysis, applying facts to our analysis, and focusing not just on the crisis at hand but on our bigger goal, what is best for America in the long run.”
After a moment she adds: “Look, I’m a capitalist.”
Harris could have taken a different path, as many progressives have urged, and more clearly portrayed what she sees as the economic villains: big corporations.
While many Democrats grudgingly approve of Trump’s approach to blaming the economy, they strongly oppose the groups he has demonized, particularly immigrants. The approach appears to have appealed to some swing voters, especially men. Harris also tried this tactic early in her campaign, blaming corporations for high food prices and proposing a federal ban on price gouging.
The vice president mentioned the ban on Wednesday but did not dwell on it at length; it was one of many scattered details of her campaign policy plan that she chose to highlight in her speech.
Other plans seemed chosen to support her argument that the best way to help Americans get ahead economically is for government to empower private enterprise. She repeated her plan to incentivize contractors to build housing units to lower rents. She proposed expanding tax credits for start-ups to encourage more business formation. She frequently contrasted her approach with Trump’s, trying to argue that his policy proposals are harmful to both workers and businesses.
Harris is running to succeed President Biden, whose approval ratings on the economy plummeted early in his term as inflation soared. Her speech and overall economic policy offered few visible departures from Biden’s platform: a mix of strong public investment and other government intervention aimed at revitalizing American industry and the resulting middle class.
But while Biden’s speech revolved around empowering workers, especially union members, Harris focused on removing what she called the barriers people and businesses face to succeeding in the economy. Harris has emphasized home buying and starting businesses as ways to build generational wealth. She made some apparent concessions to industry concerns, including including a line in her Wednesday speech praising blockchain innovations, which seemed tailored for crypto entrepreneurs.
“She’s in many ways an evolution of Biden economics,” said Ernie Tedeschi, a former chief economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Biden. “Someone summed it up as ‘middle-class capitalism,'” he added.
The key word here, as Harris’ speech emphasized, is “capitalism” — a word Biden also uses — but it has become more urgent for Harris, who has moved more center on economic issues since her brief run for the 2020 Democratic nomination and during her campaign ruled out supporting Medicare-for-all proposals.
She did not propose a “one-size-fits-all” program in her speech Wednesday: She said she wants to help Americans take vacations and buy Christmas gifts without worry.
She drew a line between honorable companies and those that scam people, but she didn’t say exactly where that line was.
“I’m a devout public servant,” she has said before, “and I know the limitations of government.”
She didn’t care about those restrictions either.
Gina Smialek contributed reporting.
