by Casey Harper
Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is being criticized for her new “price gouging” ban, which critics say is nothing more than communist-style “price controls” where the government tightly regulates industries.
Harris’s efforts to address high consumer prices are hitting a key pain point for Americans, but the details of how Harris intends to address the issue will be under intense scrutiny when she unveils her plan at a rally in North Carolina on Friday. Harris is expected to outline a broader economic plan at the same rally, but there are few details yet on how specifically she will address inflation. Prices have risen more than 20% since she and President Joe Biden took office.
This week, Harris’ campaign touted a “federal ban on corporate price gouging” to support Americans with high grocery prices and prevent “excessive” profits. Harris’ campaign said it would also order the Justice Department to look into mergers between grocery stores and food manufacturers.
Critics of the plan immediately slammed it as “price controls,” anti-capitalism, and noted that similar ideas have failed in other countries. They also say Harris blames corporations for high prices when inflation fueled by government spending is actually to blame.
“Price controls may sound good to some, but they don’t work,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “They lead to supply shortages and ultimately higher prices. It looks like Kamala Harris is a communist at heart.”
Price gouging is currently illegal, but the Biden-Harris administration says corporations have taken advantage of high inflation to raise prices even further.
“Tomorrow, Vice President Harris, someone who has never built a company, doesn’t understand profit and loss, has never faced a payroll, and has never competed in a consumer marketplace, is going to propose federal price controls,” U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in a statement. “This should terrify every American. She claims that Congress must outlaw ‘price gouging,’ which is already illegal and is not the cause of high prices. The skyrocketing prices created by the Biden-Harris administration are not price gouging, they are inflation.”
Price controls are a feature of a communist “command and control” economy, which is why Harris will likely try to avoid the term if her plan includes price controls at all, and why there has been such a forceful backlash against the plan this week.
“[Harris’] The solution to Harris’s price hikes is substantial government on steroids — where Washington bureaucrats get their hands on American companies and tell them what they can and can’t sell a product for,” Scott said. “That never works because it causes companies to produce a lot less of something — destroying supply and creating mass shortages.”
Billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran in the Republican presidential primaries and is being considered as a potential Cabinet member if former President Donald Trump is elected, criticized Republicans on the issue, asking if they would have the “courage” to criticize Harris’ plan.
“The Republican Party has a big opportunity to re-embrace capitalism,” 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 and merit over protectionism and patronage here at home. That’s a fork in the road ahead for our own movement.”
Polls show inflation remains a top concern for voters and compact business owners. Inflation has slowed from a breakneck pace early in the Biden-Harris administration, but some goods and services have continued to rise.
As The Center Square previously reported, roasted coffee prices are up 9.1% and dairy prices are up 9.4% over the past two months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pork and “processed young chicken” prices are up slightly more.
Harris’s policy agenda so far has been modest, with her record on the border and her work as a prosecutor trying to distance herself from what are now emerging policy agendas central to her campaign.
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Casey Harper is a senior reporter in the Bureau of Central Square. He previously worked for The Daily Caller, The Hill and Sinclair Broadcast Group. A graduate of Hillsdale College, Casey has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business and USA Today.
Photo “Kamala Harris” by Kamala Harris, photo: Kamala Harris
