Kamala Harris has within a week fired off a series of economic proposals designed to win her the US election — but now risks a backlash from economists and business groups.

The plans reflect the Democratic presidential candidate’s bid to fashion her own brand of economic populism in time for November’s election — borrowing much from President Joe Biden’s agenda, but with distinctive features to wield against Donald Trump.

Harris’s economic ideas include increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 per cent from 21 per cent, a federal ban on price-gouging in the food sector, a major effort to boost housing supply and more tax breaks for families with children and first-time homebuyers.

The common thread of the proposals is that each would address concerns expressed by average American voters, from high inflation to the cost of housing and the expense of raising children.

The measures pin the blame for inflation on a familiar culprit: corporate America. And they ask that same culprit to foot the bill — through higher taxes — that will bring relief to middle-class households.

Some economists are alarmed, criticising the measures for potentially leading to excessive government regulation of the economy and introducing damaging market distortions in the form of price controls.

“This plan was obviously not designed to appeal to economists,” said David Wessel, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan think-tank in Washington. “This plan sounded to me like a response to focus groups. You can tell what the voters are worried about, and after all, the first job that Kamala Harris has is to win the election.”

Harris is not offering to remake the US economy with the same kind of ambition offered by her Democratic predecessors. Barack Obama launched his presidency in 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis and tried to reshape the US healthcare and banking sectors with sweeping legislation. Biden entered office in the midst of the pandemic and then enacted large-scale legislation to revitalise American industry.

Rather, Harris is highlighting elements of the Biden administration’s economic agenda that were popular with voters, even though their approval of his handling of the economy languished — and putting them front and centre in the campaign.

“A lot of this is evolutionary rather than revolutionary from the Biden administration,” said Ernie Tedeschi, a former White House economist under Biden.

On housing, Harris is calling for $25,000 in funding for downpayments to be used by first-time homebuyers, expanding the eligibility for the scheme, while calling for the construction of 3mn new housing units and vowing to clamp down on financial investors who buy homes in bulk.

She is also proposing a $6,000 tax credit for children in the first year of their lives, and to restore the $3,600 tax credit for children passed during the pandemic. To reduce grocery costs, she has proposed a federal ban on price-gouging in the food sector, moving a step beyond the pressure put on corporate America to limit price increases by the Biden administration.

“While some food companies have passed along these savings, others still have not,” Harris’s campaign said. “Price fluctuations are normal in free markets, but vice-president Harris recognises there is a big difference between fair pricing and the excessive prices.”

Trump’s own plans to cut taxes across the board, raise tariffs on imported goods and curb immigration have raised worries among many economists who fear they could ignite a new, damaging bout of inflation across the US economy.

But the Republican candidate’s campaign and economists close to the former president have pounced on Harris’s economic agenda, saying measures like the federal ban on price-gouging at grocery stores represents a dangerous lurch towards failed policies of the 1970s.

“All economists know that having the government set prices is a really, really big mistake,” said Kevin Hassett, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under Donald Trump. “If the government starts to set prices . . . what inevitably happens is that the price . . . gets set below marginal cost, and then supply dries up.”

Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the centre-right American Enterprise Institute, who has been critical of Trump and his economic policies, said much will depend on the “details” of Harris’s proposal on price-gouging but he was not impressed.

“I can understand the appeal of trying to create a policy that is in line with where the voters are on that issue, but I think that by rolling out something that’s this half-baked, and that, at least in the judgment of most economists, is this unserious, they do damage to themselves,” Strain said.

Yet Harris appears less worried by the judgment of policy analysts than voters in the battleground states.

During a campaign stop in Nevada this month, the vice-president backed a proposal to scrap taxes on tips — a big boon for restaurant and hotel workers. It was a policy lifted straight from Trump’s plans.

It has also been criticised as an unfair gimmick, and Wessel said there was “no good reason” for it. “Why should a bus driver who makes $20 an hour pay more in taxes than a waiter who makes $10 in wages and $10 in tips? That is indefensible,” he said.

Some elements of the Harris plan have drawn praise, including her call for more home construction — a strategy also embraced by Trump. “The supply side approach is really the right way to go,” said Tedeschi. “It is an opportune time to announce it, because everybody expects interest rates to begin to fall,” he added. “So it’s already going to be a ripe time to build more housing.” 

There would be budgetary strain from Harris’s plans. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan fiscal watchdog, estimates that her measures unveiled last week would increase deficits by $1.7tn over 10 years, mostly to pay for the higher tax credits for children.

Harris would aim to offset that cost by raising the corporate tax rate and other taxes on business and wealthy Americans. CRFB said the corporate tax increase to 28 per cent would raise about $1tn over a decade.

For Strain, the trouble with Harris’s economic plans is that they are politically misdirected.

“I think she should be targeting [Nikki] Haley voters. I think she should be targeting the business community,” he said, referring to moderate Republicans unhappy with Trump. “And I think that she would really benefit from not making policy proposals that make those groups roll their eyes.”