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After Harris-Trump Debate, Progressives Say 2024 Contrast 'Couldn't Be More Stark'
The president of the AFL-CIO called the November election a "fundamental choice," slamming Trump as "an unhinged serial union buster who betrays working people."
Sep 11, 2024
The 2024 U.S. presidential debate in Philadelphia Tuesday night presented what progressive organizers and labor leaders described as a stark choice between a former president dedicated to slashing taxes for the rich and assailing fundmental freedoms and a vice president committed to protecting abortion rights, combating corporate abuses, and alleviating the nation's housing crisis.
Over the course of the 90-minute debate, Republican nominee Donald Trump repeated well-worn lies about the 2020 election, regurgitated racist falsehoods about immigrants, bragged about the conservative-dominated Supreme Court's decision revoking the constitutional right to abortion care and refused to say he would veto a national abortion ban, and doubled down on his plan to "cut taxes very substantially."
Kamala Harris, who is leading the Democratic ticket, repeatedly took aim at Trump's economic agenda, saying that "it's all about tax breaks for the richest people" and accusing the former president of being "more interested in defending himself than he is in looking out for you." Harris also touted her endorsement from the United Auto Workers and decried the offshoring of manufacturing jobs during Trump's first term.
On reproductive rights, Harris noted that Trump "hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did exactly as he intended."
"Now in over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide healthcare," said Harris. "In one state it provides prison for life. Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest."
"Understand what that means," Harris continued. "A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral. And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body."
Kamala Harris’ full response on abortion pic.twitter.com/QEVkM5WjkR
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2024
Swing Left, a progressive advocacy group, said following Tuesday's debate that "there is only one candidate who will protect and expand our freedoms," adding that "the choice couldn't be clearer."
"Harris has a clear plan for her presidency: Building an opportunity economy, securing reproductive freedom, making housing more affordable, and protecting access to healthcare for millions of Americans," the group said. "Donald Trump wants to tax the middle class while giving tax cuts to his billionaire buddies, further strip away reproductive rights—including abortion, IVF, and birth control—and implement Project 2025 on day one. But rather than present his vision, he struggled to communicate a single coherent point."
On housing, said the co-executive directors of the Center for Popular Democracy Action, Harris "did what no other presidential candidate or elected president has done."
"Harris laid out a future to boost first-time homeowners and demonstrated her commitment to America's working people," said Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper. "Trump is a racist slumlord. The contrast couldn't be more stark and for the Center for Popular Democracy Action, the choice is clear."
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, similarly described the 2024 contest as a "fundamental choice," characterizing Harris as a "principled, tough fighter who'll work to create opportunity for all of us" and Trump as "an unhinged serial union buster who betrays working people."
"As tonight's debate reminded us, a second Trump term would be a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare," Shuler said in a statement late Tuesday. "Trump and Vance are ready to make their Project 2025 agenda a terrifying reality: eviscerating unions, slashing millions of union jobs, and making it nearly impossible for workers to organize, while cutting wages and benefits and threatening health and safety on the job. They're running a campaign based on division and fear to cover up the fact that they are in this for themselves and their rich donor friends—not the workers who make this country run."
"Harris' comments on Gaza continue to offend voters appalled by Netanyahu's U.S.-funded killing campaign."
But it wasn't all praise for Harris following her debate performance.
Climate groups voiced outrage over her expressed support for fracking and touting of "the largest increase in domestic oil production in history" under the Biden administration.
"Tonight, Harris spent more time promoting fracking than laying out a bold vision for a clean energy future," said the youth-led Sunrise Movement. "That's a big missed opportunity. With an election this close, every young climate voter we turn out matters."
Harris' response to the lone question about Israel's assault on Gaza also sparked anger from progressives who have been pushing the vice president to support an arms embargo against the Israeli military—a position that, according to recent polling, would boost her support among U.S. voters.
On the debate stage Tuesday night, Harris reiterated her support for a cease-fire while emphasizing that "Israel has a right to defend itself."
"Harris' comments on Gaza continue to offend voters appalled by Netanyahu's U.S.-funded killing campaign," said Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement. "They offer nothing new and perpetuate the murderous status quo. It's simple: To stop the war, our government must stop sending the weapons fueling the war."
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Defeating Trump Gives Us a Real Chance to Restore Sanity to the Tax Code
The Trump tax cuts set off a wave of corporate profiteering that never “trickled down” to the rest of us. Soon we’ll get a chance to fix that—but only if the Republicans are soundly defeated.
Aug 04, 2024
Next year, we’ll have to make one of the most important decisions about the future of our economy. Will we hand more power and wealth to big corporations and the rich — or invest in a healthy and resilient economy that works for all of us?
In 2017, Republican lawmakers passed tax loopholes and cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy and big corporations. President Trump signed these giveaways into law, spiking inequality and setting off a wave of corporate profiteering.
Next year, parts of that law will begin to expire, which gives us the opportunity to make changes.
For decades, both parties have created an economy where big corporations and the wealthy aren’t pitching in like the rest of us. We’ve been sold a bill of goods known as “trickle down” economics. Trickle down goes like this: Feed the rich the best cut of meat and maybe we’ll get a bit of gristle that falls on the floor — and we’ll thank them for it.
The rich and most profitable corporations aren’t just contributing less and less to our collective coffers. They’re using their power to enrich themselves further while more of us struggle. Senator Elizabeth Warren recently described this as a “doom loop” for our tax code: the wealthy and corporations get richer from tax giveaways and then use their wealth and power to boost their profits — and then lobby for more tax cuts.
For example, the 2017 Trump tax cuts dropped the top corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent (compared to 40 percent in 1987). Supporters argued this would lead to better wages and supercharge economic growth. Instead, economic growth continued at about the same pace as before the tax breaks. And while 90 percent of workers did not see a raise, billionaire wealth has doubled.
In the same period in which corporations have enjoyed lower taxes, they’ve also raked in record profits. As my colleagues at Groundwork Collaborative have highlighted, lowering corporate tax rates actually incentivized corporate profiteering in the wake of the pandemic, as companies that overcharged us got to keep more of their winnings.
Trickle down theory says these windfall profits and lower taxes should encourage companies to invest more in workers and innovation. But in an economy run by big corporations with enormous market share, that money ends up being funneled to shareholders instead of increasing worker wages, investing in new or more productive technologies, or holding critical inventories in case of a crisis.
If we want corporations to invest more in wages and productive investments, we should raise their taxes, since wages and research are mostly tax deductible.
In other words, corporate profiteering is not a foregone conclusion. Raising corporate taxes has the potential to boost investment, productivity, and economic growth — and get Americans some of their money back.
The Biden administration has taken critical steps to push back against failed trickle down economics and corporate profiteering. It capped the price of essential drugs like insulin, empowered regulators to go after corporations abusing their market power, and made historic investments in a green future. But more can be done by raising taxes on the largest, most profitable corporations.
Fundamentally, the coming tax debate is about who holds the reins in shaping our economy: megacorporations and their wealthy shareholders, or the everyday people who keep the economy humming. Next year is an opportunity for Congress to stand firm against the rich and powerful and build the economy that we want to see.
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Tax the Wealthy and Reject Austerity for a More Just and Thriving Democracy
Taxing wealth and the profits of powerful corporations more aggressively can repair past economic harm, center working-class people, and bolster systems that support quality of life for all.
Jul 01, 2024
Two of the last five presidents won office over the objection of the majority of the people; California, with 65 times more people, has the same voting power in the U.S Senate as Wyoming; and the U.S. Supreme Court just permitted South Carolina lawmakers to dilute Black votes in drawing districts. These obvious flaws undermine our claim to be a strong democracy. One less appreciated but similarly undemocratic trend is our extreme inequality that supercharges the power and wealth of corporations and the uber-rich, weakens what the public sector can deliver, and often feeds on itself.
The U.S. tax code will be on the table in 2025 as some parts of the Trump tax cuts expire. We can use that moment to demand a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy, starting with better taxes on corporations and the wealthiest one percent.
Excessive Wealth and Corporate Power Fuel Inequality
Wealth is unequally distributed in the U.S., more than in other wealthy countries and more now than in our own recent history. Concentration of wealth leaves millions struggling. Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions let the wealthy and corporations exert undue political power, destabilizing our communities. The elite sway voters with exorbitant spending on political ads, capture politicians with campaign contributions, and lobby elected officials to do their bidding—often undermining policy solutions supported by the public.
Taxes, it turns out, are one of the best ways to curb excessive wealth and power. But we tax the forms of income that flow almost entirely to wealthy people at a much lower rate than the income that most of us get in our paychecks. We let some income from wealth accumulate and get passed on without ever taxing it at all. And beyond property taxes, which focus on the main source of wealth for middle-income families, we don’t tax wealth itself. This fuels a tremendous racial and economic gulf.
Taxes, it turns out, are one of the best ways to curb excessive wealth and power.
The holder of the purse-strings in America controls more than just their ever-fattening bank accounts. Wealthy people and corporations demand decisions that enhance their fortunes, often making the rest of our lives worse. Fossil fuel companies call for special tax breaks and lobby against ecological alternatives even as their emissions led to 1,400 record-shattering thermometer readings last week. Drug companies like Purdue Pharmaceuticals, peddlers of Oxycontin, spent hundreds of billions to reduce regulation in ways that ultimately cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. And financial firms write their own rules, leaving people entangled in subprime mortgages, payday loans, and other exploitative products that deepen debt.
Bolster Investments in Essential Public Institutions
Democracy requires strong public institutions, but a robust public sector only exists with adequate, fair taxation: schools, transportation, healthcare, and other basics need funding. Our tax system raises too little, leaving many communities without quality schools and infrastructure, and leaving all Americans with a weaker social contract than in other wealthy democracies. This is a problem for families of all races and incomes but it’s particularly poisonous for poor communities, urban, rural, and suburban.
The result: the wealthiest opt out of public institutions and set up parallel segregated systems which only they can access. They are then even less invested in the public good, further motivating them to siphon resources and seek lower taxes. See, for example, how wealthy families exploit private school voucher credits to make a quick buck for themselves, at public schools’ expense.
The holder of the purse-strings in America controls more than just their ever-fattening bank accounts. Wealthy people and corporations demand decisions that enhance their fortunes, often making the rest of our lives worse.
The list goes on. State colleges and universities get too little public funding, generating higher costs and deeper debt for working-class students. High wealth plus low taxes means plenty for elite private clubs but constrained resources for parks and recreation centers. And our paltry care economy means even middle-class families struggle to afford care for children or aging parents.
When we reimagine and bolster public goods, we reinforce the scaffolding that helps every person obtain economic security, build wealth, and experience upward mobility. These build economic power for the people, mitigate concentration of power, and make our democracy more inclusive in the process.
Strengthen Our Democratic and Economic Systems
When the vast majority of us live with economic precarity, America can’t be called a functioning democracy. And when people see their own public communities in shambles, they lose faith that their vote counts or their civic participation matters in making good lives for themselves and those they love.
When we reimagine and bolster public goods, we reinforce the scaffolding that helps every person obtain economic security, build wealth, and experience upward mobility.
Reforming our tax code can repair past economic harm, center working-class people, and bolster systems that support quality of life for all. We must consider and fund a different vision where everyone gets excellent schools, affordable colleges, modern ecological infrastructure, and the care they need for their families – from the littlest infants to the oldest grandparents – to thrive. It requires empowering regular people to use their voices to ask for and get what they need. It necessitates that much more of our collective resources be directed not into bank accounts of billionaires, but into the ecosystem that serves us all. A more just tax system strengthens our democracy, and a more inclusive democracy improves the tax code.
As the 2017 tax cuts come up for reauthorization in 2025, we are poised for a tremendous leap forward if we reject the austerity and undemocratic excess of recent decades and prioritize fairness, abundance, and freedom.
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