Today Kamala Harris will unveil her socialist vision for America. First on the Democrat agenda is a “new” policy proposal that echoes the failures of the Soviet Union: crippling price controls.
As Tom Hebert, Director of Competition and Regulatory Policy at Americans for Tax Reform, writes for the Washington Examiner, the Harris campaign wants to distance itself from the economic dysfunction of the Biden administration. Rather than owning up to her far-left policy failures, Harris is leaning into a popular progressive punching bag: corporate greed.
As Hebert explains:
“Grocery prices have risen 21% since Biden and Harris took office in January 2021. Government lockdowns kick-started inflation by disrupting supply chains and killing businesses. Harris dumped gasoline on the inflation fire by casting the tiebreaking vote to pass the $1.9 trillion “Inflation Reduction Act.” Thanks to this inflation, her pledge not to raise taxes on voters making less than $400,000 is worth only $332,653.”
Rather than owning up to her own policy failures, Harris wants to add fuel to the fire by empowering bureaucrats to target food distributors:
“Harris wants to pass a federal ban on “price gouging,” empowering bureaucrats and state attorneys general to levy massive fines on food companies that sell groceries above a government-determined price. Harris would also increase scrutiny on “unfair mergers that could inflate food prices.”
Unsurprisingly, Harris will not acknowledge the consequences of this anti-capitalist proposal:
“The problem is that price controls lead to scarcity, price hikes, and government rationing. Harris already wants to raise the corporate tax rate higher than Venezuela, so it makes sense that Harris wants grocery store shelves to be barren like Venezuela’s. It is economically illiterate to smear grocery stores as price gougers when the industry recorded a razor-thin 1.18% profit margin in 2023.”
Harris is also looking to expand the powers of the Biden administration’s top antitrust cop, weaponizing an outdated Depression-era law to institute Soviet-style price controls:
“Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman (FTC) Lina Khan laid the groundwork for Harris’s price control regime with last week’s announcement of an investigation into “Big Grocery” for the role “corporate greed” has played in high food prices.
Khan is also set to revive Robinson-Patman Act enforcement, a Great Depression-era law that prohibits suppliers from selling “commodities of like grade and quality” at different prices to different buyers. There is no market power component, meaning that a grandmother selling cookies to two different grocers at two different prices could violate the statute.”
As Hebert concludes, Harris’s proposed ban on “price gouging,” paired with her weaponization of the FTC, is enough to fracture her fragile coalition of Democrat support. If the media fails to challenge these radical proposals, a potential Harris administration would be free to persecute American businesses and harm American consumers through FTC overreach:
“Left-wingers want Khan to stay, and Harris donors want Khan to leave. The establishment press refuse to make Harris reveal Khan’s future because it risks fracturing her support base and harming fundraising. The Harris price control proposal puts this speculation to rest: Khan is not going anywhere if Harris wins and will be more powerful than ever. Life for shoppers will get worse, not better.”
Read the full piece here.