Harris Uses Teachers to Test-Drive Economic Policy

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Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to the American Federation of Teachers convention in Houston, where she test-drove potential economic policy, reported Politico.

Harris, who avoided diverging too sharply from the current administration’s policies, alluded to student debt forgiveness and affordable child care as part of her economic platform.

“We see a future with affordable healthcare, affordable child care, and paid leave — not for some but for all,” Harris said. “We see a future where every student has the support and the resources they need to thrive and a future where no teacher has to struggle with the burden of student loan debt.”

Harris, in her speech before the country’s second-largest teacher’s union, stressed the importance of child care and healthcare access, emphasizing the current administration’s student debt relief program.

She also tried to appeal to young voters at the conference, criticizing “Don’t Say Gay” laws and book bans.

“While you teach students about our nation’s past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nation’s true and full history, including book bans,” Harris said. “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books. Can you imagine?

“We face a choice between two very different visions for our nation, one focused on the future and the other focused on the past,” she told the convention of the first union to endorse her. “And we are fighting for the future.”

Harris has been pounding the pavement following President Joe Biden’s Sunday announcement that he was dropping out of the presidential race. She has since traveled to and delivered remarks at campaign headquarters in Delaware and Wisconsin and to a historically Black sorority in Indiana.