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Kamala Harris on Families & Children
Democratic candidate for President (withdrawn); California Senator
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Restore both Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe that working families deserve a break. They will do this by restoring two tax cuts designed to help middle class and working Americans: the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Through these two programs, millions of Americans get to keep more of their hard-earned income. They will also expand the Child Tax Credit to provide a $6,000 tax cut to families with newborn children.
Source: 2024 Presidential campaign website KamalaHarris.com
, Sep 9, 2024
Opportunity economy: child tax credit to $6,000
Q: If you are elected, what would you do on day one?HARRIS: One of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. Day one, it's gonna be about implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy.
I've already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we're gonna do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we're gonna do to invest in America's small businesses, what we're gonna do to invest in families.
For example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child's life to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib. There's the work that we're gonna do that is about investing in the American
family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now. So there are a number of things on day one.
Q: What about you?
WALZ: The child tax credit's one we know that reduces childhood poverty by a third. We did it in Minnesota.
Source: CNN on 2024 Hopefuls: joint interview of Harris and Walz
, Aug 29, 2024
$6,000 child tax credit, expanded from $2,000 per child
Ms Harris's economic strategy involves targeted tax cuts: For low- and middle-income families, she would increase the child tax credit, including $6,000 during a baby's first year of life, up from $2,000 now. And she would expand the reach of the earned
income tax credit--an important subsidy for poorer Americans--to those without children. Judged on their own merits, Ms Harris can make a strong case for both of these changes. When the child tax credit was greatly expanded during the pandemic,
it led to a nearly 50% reduction in child poverty rates. As Ms Harris puts it, that is an investment in America's future.These tax cuts would not come in isolation, however. America's budget deficit is running at about 7% of GDP, a level previously
associated with wars or recessions, while the national debt is continuing to climb higher. Neither of the candidates has offered any serious proposals about how to clean up the country's fiscal picture, and would in all likelihood make it worse.
Source: The Economist on 2024 Presidential hopefuls
, Aug 21, 2024
Cap childcare co-payments at 7% of income
Vice President Harris is announcing key steps to lower the cost of child care for working families and better support early educators: finalizing a rule strengthening the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program, which supports over a
million children and their families each month with child care assistance.Specifically, this landmark rule will:- Cap co-payments for families [participating in CCDBG] to no more than 7% of income, saving families in states that do not yet cap
co-payments over $200 a month on average;
- Encourage states to eliminate co-payments entirely for families of children with disabilities, children experiencing homelessness, children in foster care, children in Head Start, and families at or below
150% of the federal poverty level;
- Direct states to pay child care providers more fairly and on time, improving financial stability for 140,000 child care providers and incentivizing more providers to participate in the CCDBG program.
Source: Vice Presidential 2024 press release:"Lower Childcare Costs"
, Feb 29, 2024
Increase penalties for sexual exploitation of children
Harris used her position as district attorney to shape state policy, sponsoring legislation in her first year, 2004, to increase sentences for sexual exploitation of children. The legislation then carried [and] redefined prostitution. Children who were
bought and sold would no longer be called prostitutes. They were to be called what they are: exploited and victims. Johns and pimps would face longer prison terms for trafficking children. The bill passed without a no vote.
Source: Kamala's Way, by Dan Morain, p. 64
, Jan 12, 2021
Six months paid family leave; burden still falls on women
Q: Your paid family leave proposal -- why six months? HARRIS: Many women are having to make a very difficult choice whether they're going to leave a profession for which they have a passion to care for their family,
or whether they are going to give up a paycheck that is part of what that family relies on. So six months paid family leave is meant to and is designed to adjust to the reality of women's lives today.
Source: November Democratic primary debate in Atlanta
, Nov 20, 2019
Keep families together; end solitary confinement
I made a decision to become a prosecutor for two reasons. One, I've always wanted to protect people and keep them safe. And second, I was born knowing about how this criminal justice system in America has worked in a way that has been informed by
racial bias. I created one of the first in the nation requirements that a state law enforcement agency would have to wear cameras and keep them on full-time.If I was going to reform the system, I would do it from the inside.
So I took on the position that allowed me to create one of the first in the nation initiatives around people who were arrested for drugs and getting them jobs.
My plan is about making sure that, in America's criminal justice system, we de-incarcerate women and children, that we end solitary confinement and that we work on keeping families intact.
Source: September Democratic Primary debate in Houston
, Sep 12, 2019
Keep families together; end solitary confinement
I made a decision to become a prosecutor for two reasons. One, I've always wanted to protect people and keep them safe. And second, I was born knowing about how this criminal justice system in America has worked in a way that has been informed by
racial bias. I created one of the first in the nation requirements that a state law enforcement agency would have to wear cameras and keep them on full-time.If I was going to reform the system, I would do it from the inside.
So I took on the position that allowed me to create one of the first in the nation initiatives around people who were arrested for drugs and getting them jobs.
My plan is about making sure that, in America's criminal justice system, we de-incarcerate women and children, that we end solitary confinement and that we work on keeping families intact.
Source: September Democratic Primary debate in Houston
, Sep 12, 2019
Supports broad paid family and medical leave plans
Harris supports broad paid family and medical leave plans.15 CANDIDATES HAVE SIMILAR VIEWS: Michael Bennet; Cory Booker; Peter Buttigieg; Julian Castro; John Delaney; Tulsi Gabbard; Kirsten Gillibrand; John Hickenlooper;
Jay Inslee; Amy Klobuchar; Seth Moulton; Beto O`Rourke; Tim Ryan; Bernard Sanders; Elizabeth Warren.
The congressional plan creates a universal, gender-neutral, national paid family and medical leave program allowing for up to 12 weeks of paid leave.
Source: Politico "2020Dems on the Issues"
, Jul 17, 2019
Sanctuary for prostituted youth so they can escape pimps
[In San Francisco in 2000] one of our priorities was creating a safe place for prostituted youth to get love and support and treatment. I knew from years of experience that the survivors we were trying to help usually had nowhere to go. People often
wondered why it was that exploited kids picked up by the police would go right back to the pimps who "took care of them." It didn't seem so strange to me--where else were these kids able to turn? Our task force proposed establishing a safe house for
sexually exploited youth--a sanctuary that would offer substance abuse and mental health treatment; the resources needed to get back to school; and a network of support to keep vulnerable young people safe, healthy, and on track. We advocated for
funding to create the safe house as well as to run a public education campaign.
To our delight, the board of supervisors adopted and funded our recommendations. We were able to rescue scores of runaways within the first couple of years.
Source: The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris, p.35-6
, Jan 8, 2019
Shut down brothels masquerading as massage parlors
[In S.F. in 2000] I spent two years at the city attorney's office. I started by co-founding a task force to study the issues of sexually exploited youth. We believed it was important to disrupt the network of brothels masquerading as massage parlors,
where so many people were being sexually exploited, so we asked the board of supervisors to direct law enforcement to investigate them.
[After S.F. funded a task force on prostitution], law enforcement shut down nearly three dozen brothels in the city.
Source: The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris, p.36
, Jan 8, 2019
2004: Performed same-sex marriage despite state ban
In the year 2000, California voters approved a ballot initiative--Prop 22--that required the state to define marriage as a union between people of the opposite sex. For years we fought it.During Valentine's Day week in 2004, then-San Francisco mayor
Gavin Newsom decided to allow marriages for same-sex couples to proceed anyway.
around the block, waiting to get in. They were counting down the minutes before a government would finally recognize their right to marry whomever they loved. The joy and anticipation were palpable. Some of them had been waiting decades.
I got out of my car and walked up the steps of City Hall, where I bumped into a city official. "Kamala, come and help us," she said, a glowing smile on her face. "We need more people to perform the marriages." I was delighted to be a part of it.
Source: The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris, p.111 (2000s History)
, Jan 8, 2019
Punish parents of chronically truant kids
She championed a statewide version of an anti-truancy law she had put in place in San Francisco that threatened parents of chronically truant children with as much as a $2,000 fine and a year in jail. By Oct. 2012, two mothers had been imprisoned
under the law. "We are putting parents on notice," she said in her inaugural speech as attorney general. "If you fail in your responsibility to your kids, we are going to work to make sure you face the full force and consequences of the law."
Source: Jacobin Magazine on 2018 California Senate race
, Aug 10, 2017
Served as attorney in Division on Children and Families
Attorney General Harris began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, where she specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases. In 1998, she joined the San Francisco District Attorney's
Office, where she led the Career Criminal Unit. She also served as the head of the San Francisco City Attorney's Division on Children and Families.
Source: 2016 Senate campaign website, KamalaHarris.org
, Apr 1, 2015
Let same-sex couples marry the person they love
Harris filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional and the initiative's sponsors do not have the right to claim to represent the interests of California."Equal protection under the law is
a bedrock of our Constitution," said Harris. "I look forward to the day when all Californians are granted their full civil rights and can marry the person they love."
In 2010, a court invalidated Proposition 8 on the grounds that it violated the equal
protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment by taking away the right of same-sex couples to marry. Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Harris both refused to defend Proposition 8 on the basis that the law is unconstitutional.
"The sole yet
profound effect of Proposition 8 was to take away the right of gay and lesbian couples to call their union a 'marriage' and to strip loving relationships of validation and dignity under law," says the brief.
Source: Calif. Attorney General press release "Marriage Equality"
, Feb 27, 2013
Page last updated: Nov 03, 2024; copyright 1999-2022 Jesse Gordon and OnTheIssues.org