Democrats go bold on economic plans, a deliberate contrast to 2016

Asked what her very first act as president would be, Sen. Kamala Harris had a quick answer at a recent televised town hall: Enact a tax cut that would boost incomes for working families by as much as $6,000 a year. But among Democratic activists, whether fairly or not, “there’s a sense that our solutions were constrained.” Some of the drive to think big represents a reaction against “the boldness and baldness of the right-wing agenda,” including the 2017 tax cut, which gave the lion’s share of its benefits to the already well-off, said Connie Razza, vice president of policy at Demos, an advocacy group on the Democratic left. About half of all middle-income households — families earning between $50,000 and $87,000 a year — would get a tax cut under Harris’ plan, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Warren’s two main economic proposals, by contrast, do not involve large amounts of new federal spending — a deliberate move to avoid the “big spender” label that has hurt Democrats, according to advisors. Former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire who has been pondering his own run for the nomination, said during a recent trip to New Hampshire that voters could see the impact of ideas like Warren’s by looking to another country in the hemisphere — “it’s called Venezuela.” Even supporters say her changes in corporate rules would sharply lower stock prices, at least initially.