Kamala Harris outlines economic priorities on the last night of the DNC

Vice President Kamala Harris closed the Democratic National Convention Thursday night with an acceptance speech that broadly laid out her priorities. And when it comes to dollars and cents, she highlighted protecting Social Security and Medicare, as well as ending — that’s her word — the housing shortage in this country and enacting a tax cut for middle-income households.

Marketplace’s Nova Safo has been reporting from the DNC in Chicago throughout the week and joined “Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour to discuss Harris’ primetime speech. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Sabri Ben-Achour: The vice president had signaled that she would be framing her economic message as one focused on supporting the middle class. And that was a big part of her speech. Were there any surprises?

Nova Safo: Less surprises and more emphasis on certain things. I’ll give you an example: She described herself as realistic and practical. And those words are important, because much of the country is getting to know her again or for the first time, and she is defining what kind of policies she will pursue — economic or otherwise. And on the economic front, yes, she said she would be squarely focused on the middle class.

Kamala Harris: We know a strong middle class has always been critical to America’s success, and building that middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.

Ben-Achour: What does that look like in terms of specific proposals?

Safo: She promised a middle-class tax cut; she said that would affect 100 million Americans. We’ll have to see what the details are there, but the next president will have a lot of sway over tax policy, because many of the Trump-era tax cuts are set to expire.

President Biden had wanted to keep cuts for households making less than $400,000. Harris’ advisors told convention-goers this week that they do expect her to continue or advance many of the Biden administration’s economic policies. A lot of these things, though, will require Congressional action.