Telegraph photo by ADAM URQUHART U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., on Tuesday campaigns for president on the campus of Keene State College.

KEENE – As a longtime prosecutor and attorney general in California, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Tuesday expressed determination to institute gun control measures — with or without the help of Congress.

Speaking on the campus of Keene State College, the U.S. senator also discussed her plan to offer a tax cut of up to $6,000 per year for families that earn less than $100,000 annually.

“I am proposing that for families that make less than $100,000 a year, they receive a $6,000 tax credit that they can receive at up to $500 a month, which will represent all the difference between those families being able to get through the end of the month with dignity or not,” Harris said on Tuesday.

Furthermore, Harris also wants to provide every American public school teacher a raise of approximately $13,500 per year.

“I strongly believe that you can judge a society based on how it treats its children, and there are few greater expressions of love that society can make toward its children than investing in the education of those children, and by extension, their teachers,” Harris said. “Let’s speak truth.”

Though current University of New Hampshire polls show Harris with only 4 percent support in the first-in-the-nation primary state, she has been working quite a bit in her home state of California lately, as well as other early primary states such as Texas, Nevada, South Carolina and Iowa.

Tuesday, she worked to convince the crowd gathered at Keene State that she is the Democrat who is best equipped to defeat President Donald Trump in the general election next year.

“When elected president of these United States, I will give the United States Congress 100 days to pull it together, and if they don’t, I will issue three executive actions,” Harris said regarding gun control measures.

She said her executive orders on gun control would:

• require anyone who sells more than five guns per year to conduct background checks;

• require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to take licenses from violators; and

• place the names of fugitives fleeing justice on the prohibited list.

As a former prosecutor, she discussed how she has sat side-by-side with many of the mothers and family members of senseless, and needless gun violence victims. She said this is a serious matter, and that the country needs leaders to lead.

“Let’s speak truth,” was a message Harris reiterated throughout her speech, given inside the Flag Room of the Young Student Center on campus, even if that truth can at times be uncomfortable. Harris said there are a lot of people who are distrustful of their government, its institutions and its leaders.

“I believe this is a moment in time in our country where we must speak truth,” Harris said.

Part of the reason she decided to run for president is because while looking around America, she thought of the question, “Who are we?”

“We are better than this,” she said of Trump.

Regarding her tax cut proposal, Harris said the economy is not working for many, with about half of American families unable to afford a $400 unexpected expense that may potentially occur. This sort of situation may include a hospital bill or car repairs, but in any event, she said this unexpected $400 expense, whatever it may be, could topple a family. That’s why she is proposing to lift up working families from coast to coast.

Furthermore, in order to pay for such an expenditure, she said she would repeal Trump’s recent tax cuts.

Aside from investing working families, she also seeks to invest in closing the teacher pay gap by implementing the first federal investment in such. She said this would amount to $13,500 a year, which in most places in the country, amounts to a year’s worth of mortgage payments, a year’s worth of groceries, or putting a significant dent in student loan debt — which she said is one of the main reasons people do not go into teaching, or are forced to leave the teaching field.

Other issues Harris touched on were climate change and health care. If elected, on day one, she intends to get back into the Paris Climate Agreement.

“This issue of climate change, which I would offer we should be thinking of as climate crisis, represents an existential threat to us as a species,” Harris said. “What we have are supposed leaders who are pushing science fiction instead of science fact.”

When it comes to health care, Harris supports so-called “Medicare for all.” She said health care and access to it should be a right, rather than a privilege of just those who can afford to receive such care.

The Californian looked out across the crowd and said, Russia interfered in the 2016 election. She then went on to say the country has a commander-in-chief who prefers to take the word of the Russian president over the word of the American intelligence community.

“We need a new commander-in-chief,” Harris said.

The senator said she strongly believes there is a truth the people must not only speak, but feel in their hearts and souls. That being, a truth that binds the people together, rather than separating them.

“The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us,” Harris said. “Let’s know that truth.”

Adam Urquhart may be contacted at 594-1206, or at aurquhart@nashuatelegraph.com.

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