As Election Day creeps closer, Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to define herself as a champion of small businesses, which she has called "the engines of our economy."
However, does the vice president's record match her rhetoric? Voters who rank the economy as their top issue in this election do not seem to think so. The Harris-Walz campaign has lagged behind rival former President Donald Trump, who, as of Oct. 1, held a nine percentage point lead over Harris in trust on this issue, according to the Fox News Power Rankings.
To undercut Trump, Harris has proposed a wide range of policies to boost small businesses, with an ambitious goal of 25 million new business applications by the end of her first term, should she be elected president. She hopes to outpace the 15 million applications filed during Trump's first term. Harris has pledged to give startup businesses a $50,000 tax deduction and steer venture capital toward local entrepreneurs in rural parts of the country to meet that goal.
"I believe America’s small businesses are an essential foundation to our entire economy," Harris said at a Sept. 4 rally in North Hampton, New Hampshire, where she outlined her vision for an "opportunity economy."
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Her proposals include low and no-interest loans to small businesses, simplifying how businesses can file taxes, increasing the number of federal contracts with small businesses and increasing taxes on "billionaires and big corporations" to fund these programs. Harris' tax deduction plan has won praise from some economists, including Nicholas Creel, an assistant professor of Business Law at Georgia College and State University, who called it "potentially transformational."
Creel told Fox News Digital her plan would help people "justify the risky prospect of starting a new business and making sure more of those new businesses survive."
Other supporters point to Harris' work as vice president and senator to boost minority-owned businesses in poorer communities.
"As Vice President, Harris established the Economic Opportunity Coalition, an unprecedented public–private partnership that has poured billions of dollars of critical investment into historically underserved communities. As Senator, she secured a transformative $12 billion for Community Development Financial Institutions and other community lenders, providing capital to small businesses around the country, including to rural communities," said Lindi Li, a Democratic strategist and member of the Harriz-Walz National Finance Committee.
Li's family owns commercial and residential real estate in Pennsylvania.
"My family and I run a small business ourselves and the Biden-Harris administration has been incredibly supportive, always extending a listening ear," she told Fox News Digital.
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Hundreds of venture capital investors have signed on to the Harris economic agenda as well.
"VP Harris' support for small businesses and startups is genuine and began long before this campaign," said Gayle Jennings O'Byrne, CEO of Wocstar Capital. "I had the opportunity to speak with her earlier this year when she came to North Carolina to announce $32 million in investments into women and minority-led venture capital funds, including mine. Over 825 of the nation’s top venture capitalists, myself included, believe in her commitment so strongly that we publicly signed a pledge titled ‘VCs for Kamala.’"
Republicans are predictably far less optimistic about Harris' plans. Critics point to high inflation under the Biden-Harris administration, brought about by excessive government spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, as harmful for existing businesses.
"Vice President Kamala Harris has certainly positioned herself as an advocate for small businesses, with notable initiatives like increasing the startup tax deduction and focusing on underserved communities. However, the reality on the ground tells a more complicated story," said Ryan Waite, a Republican political consultant.
Waite argued the Biden-Harris record has exacerbated inflationary pressures and undermines any support for small businesses Harris aims to provide. Year-over-year price increases peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, though inflation has since fallen to around 3% – still above the Federal Reserve's target 2% rate.
"Entrepreneurs need more than just access to capital. They need a stable economic foundation to thrive. So far, the administration has fallen short in addressing these immediate concerns, and many small businesses aren't seeing the benefits of these policies as quickly as VP Harris would have us believe."
The Harris-Walz campaign and White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Harris' campaign website claims she was a strong advocate for small businesses as both a U.S. senator and later as vice president. She was California's junior senator from 2017-2021, when Trump occupied the White House, during which time she opposed the GOP economic agenda.
Harris voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which slashed corporate taxes and provided tax relief for small businesses with the Qualified Business Income Deduction, in addition to changes in individual tax deductions and the family tax credit, which affects the economy overall.
As one of the more liberal members of the Senate, Harris co-sponsored the Raise the Wage Act of 2019. Introduced by self-described democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the bill would have increased the federal minimum wage to $15. Republicans opposed the effort, arguing it would increase costs on businesses that rely on low-skill or entry-level labor. It passed the House but died in the Senate.
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On a more bipartisan note, Harris voted for the CARES Act of 2020, a $2 trillion coronavirus relief package that created the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan initiatives to help small businesses survive COVID lockdown mandates. The final bill passed nearly unanimously, 96-0-4.
Later that year, Harris secured passage of the Jobs and Neighborhood Investment Act, which was included in the COVID-related stimulus package passed in December 2020. The legislation provided $12 billion to community development financial institutions (CDFIs), which direct capital to businesses in minority and low- and moderate-income communities.
Harris also took several votes on amendments that impacted businesses. She voted for an amendment that would extend and expand paid sick and paid family and medical leave mandates on small businesses; against an amendment to ensure that supplemental unemployment insurance compensation created in the CARES Act would not exceed employer compensation; and she opposed the nomination of Linda McMahon to be Administrator of the Small Business Administration in February 2017.
Outside of Congress, Harris consistently supported "Small Business Saturday" during her time in the Senate, and she regularly visits small businesses while traveling and on the campaign trail.
As vice president, Harris has mainly served as a spokeswoman and advocate for "Bidenomics." However, at a pivotal moments, she has cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate to pass signature legislation called for by President Biden.
In the early days of the administration, Harris pushed through the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package that built upon the CARES Act. She also campaigned on behalf of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Though an infrastructure deal had evaded the Trump administration, the Biden-Harris law has since allocated nearly $454 billion in funding, including over 56,000 specific projects and awards across more than 4,500 communities nationwide, Forbes reported.
Again in August 2022, Harris was the tie-breaking vote in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which extended tax credits for health care plans through the Affordable Care Act and implemented additional tax credits to help small businesses save money on energy costs.
GOP lawmakers have criticized the IRA for ramping up government spending without significantly reducing carbon emissions or inflation.
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In support of the Biden administration's small business initiatives, and building on her work in the Senate, Harris has led calls for the federal government to expand capital access to underserved communities. The administration followed through by permitting new applications for Small Business Lending Company licenses for the first time in 40 years – which allows lending organizations to use government guarantees when underwriting small business loans, reducing risk to the lender and effectively subsidizing costs to the borrower.
In 2022, Harris established the Economic Opportunity Coalition, a group of financial institutions and companies that joined together "to address economic disparities and accelerate economic opportunity in communities of color and other underserved communities." Member institutions have set a goal for $3 billion of investments into CDFIs and minority depository institutions, which support businesses in those communities.
The White House has placed a strong emphasis on supporting minority entrepreneurs and claims statistics show its programs are working. "Data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances shows that between 2019 and 2022, the share of families owning a business increased by 9%, with particularly large increases among Black and Hispanic households," the White House has said.
The administration has noted with approval that the percent of Black households owning a business between 2019 and 2022 has more than doubled after falling between 2007 and 2019.
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Javier Palomarez, founder and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council, calls the Biden-Harris record on small businesses "mixed."
"On one hand, they championed the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law, which has been a key achievement and boost for small businesses. The once-in-a-lifetime investment presented countless opportunities for small businesses, especially hispanic businesses, ranging from construction and extraction to transportation and more," Palomarez told Fox News Digital.
"On the other hand, the Biden-Harris administration has taken no action on policies such as Research and Development (R&D) amortization for businesses," he added.
"Vice President Harris has a mixed record with small businesses under Biden, and has worked to distance herself from that record. However, the Vice President should come up with realistic solutions and do more to speak directly to the concerns of small businesses like interest rates, the cost of living, energy prices and supply chains."
