Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (L), and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).
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Housing
In May 2023, Walz signed housing legislation that included $200 million in down payment assistance. The bill also had $200 million for housing infrastructure and $40 million for workforce housing.
“We expect Walz to be an advocate for demand-side approaches to housing,” Jaret Seiberg, analyst at TD Cowen wrote in a July statement. “These are the type of housing ideas we would expect in a Harris administration,” she wrote.
Demand-side approaches to housing aim to help individual households by improving housing quality or reducing monthly housing costs.
Meanwhile, Vance, who is also a proponent of affordable housing, highlighted the issue in his Republican National Convention acceptance speech and along the campaign trail.
“Prior to running for Senate, Vance argued that one key to tackling poverty is to address affordable housing,” and he has opposed institutional ownership of rental homes and Chinese buyers for U.S. real estate, Seiberg wrote.
Child tax credit
Without action from Congress, trillions of tax breaks enacted by Trump are scheduled to expire after 2025, including the child tax credit, which will drop from $2,000 to $1,000 per child.
Congress in 2021 approved a temporary expansion of the child tax credit, including upfront monthly payments, which reduced the child poverty rate to a historic low of 5.2% for 2021, according to a Columbia University analysis.
Following the federal policy, Minnesota enacted a refundable state-level child tax credit in 2023, which Walz described as “signature accomplishment.”
Minnesota’s new child tax credit is unusual in its narrowness, but it is the most generous in the nation for low-income households.
Jared Walczak
Vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation
“Minnesota’s new child tax credit is unusual in its narrowness,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation. “But it is the most generous in the nation for low-income households.”
However, a permanent federal child tax credit expansion could be difficult, particularly amid a divided Congress and increasing concerns over the federal budget deficit.
Walz’s campaign did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Senate Republicans blocked a federal child tax credit expansion last week, and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, described the vote as a “blatant attempt to score political points.”
Despite the failed procedural vote, Crapo voiced openness to negotiating a “child tax credit solution that a majority of Republicans can support.”
Democrats scheduled the vote partially in response to Vance, who has positioned himself as a pro-family candidate. Vance was not present for the Senate vote, but has expressed support for the child tax credit.
Vance’s campaign did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Student loans
Vance has spoken out against student loan forgiveness policies.
“Forgiving student debt is a massive windfall to the rich, to the college educated, and most of all to the corrupt university administrators of America,” Vance, a Yale Law School graduate wrote on X in April 2022. “Republicans should combat this with each ounce of our vitality and energy.”
Excellent schooling debt within the U.S. stands at round $1.6 trillion. Almost 43 million individuals — or 1 in 6 grownup Individuals — carry pupil loans. Girls and individuals of shade are most burdened by the debt.
Vance does appear to approve of mortgage forgiveness in excessive instances. In Could, he helped introduce laws that might excuse mother and father from pupil loans they took on for a kid who turned completely disabled.
Jane Fox, chapter chair of the Authorized Help Society Attorneys union, UAW native 2325, mentioned it was hypocritical and incorrect of Vance to border debt aid as a profit to those that are nicely off.
“Pupil debt forgiveness is a working-class subject,” Fox mentioned. “These within the 1% who went to elite establishments after which labored in personal fairness as Senator Vance did hardly ever want debt aid.”
Vance’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
In the meantime, Walz, a former faculty trainer, has supported packages to alleviate the burden of pupil debt on individuals, mentioned larger schooling knowledgeable Mark Kantrowitz.
He signed a pupil mortgage forgiveness program for nurses into regulation in Minnesota, Kantrowitz mentioned, in addition to a free tuition initiative for low-income college students.
“As my daughter prepares to go off to varsity subsequent 12 months, affordability and pupil mortgage debt are on the entrance of our minds,” Walz wrote on Fb in 2018. “Each Minnesotan deserves a shot at an excellent schooling with out being held again by hovering prices and pupil mortgage debt.”
