By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is taking fire for her new “price-gouging” ban that critics say is little more than communism-style “price controls” where government heavily regulates industries.
Harris’ effort to address elevated consumer prices hits at a key pain point for Americans, but the details of how Harris plans to go about fixing that problem will be the subject of close scrutiny after she laid out the plan at a North Carolina rally Friday. Harris unveiled a broader economic plan at the same rally, but so far there are few details on specifically how she will address inflation. Prices have risen more than 20% overall since she and President Joe Biden took office.
Harris’ campaign this week touted the “federal ban on corporate price-gouging” to help Americans with high grocery prices and prevent “excessive” profits. Harris’ campaign said she would also order the Department of Justice to take a look at mergers between grocers and food producers.
Critics of the plan immediately blasted it as “price controls,” anti-capitalism and noted similar ideas failed in other countries. They also argue Harris is blaming corporations for high prices when inflation fueled by government spending is really to blame.
“Price controls might sound good to some, but they do not work,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “They lead to supply shortages and in the end, higher prices. Looks like Kamala Harris is a communist at heart.”
Price gouging is currently already illegal, but the Biden-Harris administration has argued that corporations have taken advantage of elevated inflation to raise prices even higher.
“Tomorrow, Vice President Harris, a person who has never built a business, doesn’t understand profit and loss, has never met payrolls, and who has never competed in a consumer market, is going to propose federal price controls,” U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in a statement. “That should terrify every American. She claims that Congress needs to ban ‘price gouging,’ which is already widely illegal and not the cause of high prices. The skyrocketing prices created by the Biden-Harris administration aren’t price-gouging, it’s inflation.”
Price controls are a feature of communistic “command and control” economies, the reason Harris will likely seek to avoid the term, if her plan will truly include price controls at all, and why such a strong reaction broke out against the plan this week.
[Harris’] solution to the Harris Price Hikes she caused is big government on steroids – where Washington bureaucrats stick their hands into American businesses and say what they can and can’t sell a product for,” Scott said. “It never works because it causes companies to make much less of something – destroying supply and causing a mass shortage of goods.”
Billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran in the Republican presidential primary and is considered a potential cabinet appointee if former President Donald Trump is elected, called out Republicans on the issue, asking whether they would have “the spine” to critique Harris’ plan.
“The GOP has a wide-open opportunity to embrace capitalism again,” Ramaswamy wrote on X. “No, that doesn’t mean blindly reciting neoliberal shibboleths about spreading ‘democracy through capitalism’ abroad (that doesn’t work: see China). But it *does* mean embracing exceptionalism & merit over protectionism & patronage here at home. That’s the fork in the road ahead for our own movement.”
Polling shows that inflation remains a top concern for voters and small business owners. Inflation has slowed from its breakneck pace earlier in the Biden-Harris term, but some goods and services have continued to rise.
As The Center Square previously reported, roasted coffee prices rose 9.1% and dairy product prices increased 9.4% in the past two months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pork and “processed young chickens” prices saw slightly higher increases.
So far, Harris’ policy agenda has been sparse, and what record she does have on the border and her time as a prosecutor she has tried to distance herself from, making this new policy agenda crucial for her campaign.
Democrats used big government to control food prices in the sixties last century by paying farmers to not grow the crops they wanted to control the price on.
It didnt work then but let’s try it again using force this time…maybe a different outcome?
This is Californication on the national scale. Every time gas prices go up in California the leftists howl about big oil profit gouging. Meanwhile California taxes every gallon of gas $0.60 then local taxes add sales tax, that is on top of production tax, refining tax, transportation tax, etc., etc., etc. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that Kamala will tax those she deems to be price gouging, which will only further drive up prices for the consumer.
The most effective tool will be to stop printing money like toilet paper. And stop providing “full-coverage” welfare for illegal aliens.
Shortages=famine and death.
What do you expect? Harris was born and raised in the Bay Area, where everything is Communist price controlled. She will make the rest of the US live by her standards if elected.
She’s a Soviet commuist
Communist
She couldn’t find her a– with both hands. Why even write about her. She is an empty suit. Unbelievable.
Doug Glenn,
Yeah? will Willie Brown thought otherwise! Kamala has Talent!
Boy it’s going to be fun reading the comments on here if Harris wins the election.
Commie Man. After Kamala’s brilliant unveiling of her ” economic” plan one noticed that AU, ( GOLD) shot up 50 bucks per Troy oz.
That is a clear comment from investors.
Tricky Dick couldn’t make price controls work, neither could Stalin, your silly girl is a disaster.
Enjoy!
Do all of us a favor cman and hold your breath.
Your contributing to global warming and stupidity.
One of the main issues with price increases is energy increases which will never stop until we are taking care of ourselves. With fuel prices so high, so are the following prices: Fertilizers for the farmers and overall production costs just to break even. Shipping prices, storage prices, on products from the farms to outlets. Wage increases to off-set the energy increases on our society. Price gouging, is done by the current administrations energy policies. And, that is not counting the fact that we have not built back our energy reserve for the protection of this country!
The present administration just has to look in a mirror to see where the burden on the people currently rests. We cannot survive the present snowballing effect on our economy just by giving out more subsides to everyone so they can afford to exist in our energy crisis.
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