RALEIGH, NC — RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday announced a sweeping package of economic policy proposals designed to cut taxes and reduce the cost of food, housing and other essential goods for many Americans.

“Look, the bills add up,” she said, trying to address the financial concerns that most concern voters and for which Republican Donald Trump wants to blame her.

During a speech in the swing state of North Carolina, Harris said that “building the middle class will be a critical goal of my presidency” while unveiling her plan for a federal ban on price gouging by food producers and grocers. She also proposed a $25,000 down payment for certain first-time home buyers and tax breaks for entry-level home construction.

“Every day, families across our country talk about their plans for the future, their ambitions, their hopes for themselves and their children. And they talk about how to achieve those goals financially, because the bills are piling up,” Harris said. “Grocery, rent, gas, school uniforms, prescription drugs. After all of that, there’s not much left at the end of the month for many families.”

She emphasized tax breaks for families and middle- and low-income earners, and promised to increase the child tax credit to as much as $3,600 – and to as much as $6,000 for children in their first year. The vice president also wants to increase the earned income tax credit to cover people in low-paying jobs without children – which the campaign estimates would lower their effective tax rate by $1,500 – and reduce health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.

Overall, the plans represent a continuation of many of the Biden administration’s priorities.

Harris doesn’t expect a radical departure from President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race last month and endorsed her. Still, the vice president has embraced a dash of economic populism, shifting away from Biden’s emphasis on job creation and infrastructure and turning to issues more closely tied to lowering the cost of living – food prices, housing costs and tax relief for families.

Many of her proposals would require congressional approval, which is far from certain in the current political environment. And Harris’ campaign has offered few details about how the ideas will be funded.

The vice president is trying to tone down Trump’s attacks against her. He responded to her speech with a post on his social media account: “Kamala will impose Soviet-style price controls.” On Thursday, he gave a speech himself in which he showed popular supermarket foods to illustrate the high prices of food.

Some of Trump’s economic advisers refuted Harris’ plans even before her speech on Friday. Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the former president’s campaign, called her representative of a “socialist and authoritarian model.”

Kevin Hassett, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration, called it “completely absurd” that the government plays a role in setting food prices, referring to Harris’ proposal to impose a federal ban on “corporate price gouging” on food.

In her speech, Harris drew sharp contrasts with Trump’s economic proposals, including his call for high tariffs on foreign goods. She said her opponent wants to impose “a de facto national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries.”

“That will mean higher prices on virtually every item of daily life,” Harris said. “A Trump tax on gasoline, a Trump tax on groceries, a Trump tax on clothing, a Trump tax on over-the-counter drugs.”

She added: “Now that everyday prices are too high, he will drive them up even further.”

Year-over-year inflation has hit its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are still 21 percent higher than they were three years ago. A Labor Department report this week showed that nearly all of July’s inflation came from higher rents and other housing costs, a trend that is moderating, according to real-time data. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, contributing to lower inflation.

Harris’ grocery pricing proposal would direct the Federal Trade Commission to punish “big corporations” that hike up their prices. He cites the lack of competition in the meatpacking industry as the reason for the rise in meat prices.

Monica Wallace, a district official who attended Harris’ speech, called the vice president’s economic plans “what we need.”

“One of my mothers is on welfare, and she can’t afford enough food on food stamps alone,” Wallace said.

Wallace compared Harris to Trump, saying she sees the vice president as someone who is “definitely for the middle and lower class,” while the former president is “for the people who have enough money to do whatever they want.”

However, polls show that Americans trust Trump more than Harris on economic policy: About 45 percent say Trump is better positioned to handle economic policy, while 38 percent say the same about Harris. According to the latest poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about one in ten don’t trust either Harris or Trump better on economic policy.

Harris has capitalized on renewed enthusiasm since the Democratic campaign restarted, and has launched a blitz on battleground states in recent weeks that has increased the number of elections strategists see as closely contested. In North Carolina, Democrats are cautiously navigating the new energy in an economically dynamic state that has not been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.

Governor Roy Cooper told the crowd Friday: “I have that 2008 feeling.”

“That was the last time we voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama,” Cooper said.

Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University, said the state had “started from a situation where Joe Biden was almost certain to lose here, while Kamala Harris has a very real chance of winning.”

Deborah Holder, a 68-year-old Raleigh resident who runs six McDonald’s restaurants, said of the vice president, “Her culture will be a tremendous strength for her because she will be able to look at the rest of us not just as her constituents, but as people she has interacted with in all walks of life.”

Harris is trying to strike a balance between her own image and her economic agenda while also acknowledging the Biden administration’s track record. Her speech in North Carolina came a day after the president was asked if Harris might distance herself from his economic record, to which he replied, “She won’t.”

In their first joint speech since Biden’s exit on Thursday in Maryland, Harris and he presented successful negotiations to reduce the prices of ten prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.

But Harris spoke far more about Trump than Biden in North Carolina, promising to “build an America where every individual’s work is rewarded and talent is valued, where we work with workers and businesses to strengthen the American economy.”

“And where everyone has the chance,” she said, “not just to get through, but to move forward.”

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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Chapin, South Carolina, and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.