Harris vows to help home buyers, ban food price gouging in sweeping cost-of-living proposals

U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris announced a sweeping set of economic proposals on Friday meant to cut taxes and lower the cost of groceries, housing and other essentials for many Americans.

"Look, the bills add up," she declared, trying to address the financial concerns that are at the top of voters' minds and that Republican candidate Donald Trump is attempting to blame on her.

During a speech in the battleground state of North Carolina, the Democrats' candidate for November's election said that "building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency."

"Every day across our nation, families talk about their plans for the future, their ambitions, their aspirations for themselves, for their children. And they talk about how they're going to be able to actually achieve them financially, because," Harris said. "Food, rent, gas, back to school clothes, prescription medications. After all that, for many families, there's not much left at the end of the month."

Here's a look at some of her proposals.

Harris's plans include a federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries, which her campaign says aims to stop big corporations from unfairly exploiting consumers while generating excessive corporate profits.

The grocery pricing proposal would instruct the Federal Trade Commission to penalize "big corporations" that engage in price spikes. It singles out a lack of competition in the meat-packing industry for driving up meat prices.

"I know most businesses are creating jobs, contributing to our economy and playing by the rules," Harris said. "But some are not, and that's just not right. And we need to take action when that is the case."

Several U.S. states already restrict price gouging, but there is no federal-level ban.

Harris in her speech stressed tax breaks for families, as well as middle- and lower-income people, promising to expand the child tax credit to up to $3,600 US — and $6,000 for children in their first year of life.

The vice-president also wants to enlarge the earned income tax credit to cover people in lower-income jobs without children — which the campaign estimates would cut their effective tax rate by $1,500 — and lower health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.

Harris said she wishes aims to maintain Biden's promise not to raise taxes on people who make $400,000 or less a year, and her campaign aims to draw a contrast on taxes with Trump, who slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 per from 35 per cent and implemented other tax breaks that are set to expire next year. Trump has promised to make the tax cuts permanent.

Harris proposed $25,000 US in down payment assistance for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes.

She also aims to expand rental assistance, ban rental price-fixing and stop Wall Street firms from buying homes in bulk.