Kamala Harris to Roll Out First Major Policy: ‘Price Controls’ For Food And Groceries

Vice President Kamala Harris is poised to roll out a proposal to impose a federal ban on supposed corporate “price-gouging” on food and groceries, according to The Hill.

I have yet to hear any of the people who make such accusations explain to us how all of these businesses magically became greedy, and all of these corporations magically started price gouging all at the same time in January 2021 – E.J. Antoni

Harris will announce the plan during a Friday speech detailing her economic agenda in North Carolina, where she will blame corporate consolidation and greed for the increased prices Americans are paying for their food and groceries, according to The Hill. The proposal to attribute inflation to corporate greed echoes a common refrain from the Biden administration, which has consistently tried to pin responsibility for inflation on price gouging instead of its massive spending agenda.

The vice president will say during her Friday speech that the cost of meat is particularly responsible for the overall increases in food prices, according to The Hill. The Consumer Price Index for “food at home” — which includes many items commonly purchased at grocery stores — is up by about 21% since 2021, the year that the Biden administration came into power, according to Axios.

“I have yet to hear any of the people who make such accusations explain to us how all of these businesses magically became greedy, and all of these corporations magically started price gouging all at the same time in January 2021,” E.J. Antoni, an economist and research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Or, maybe there was something else that happened right around that time that caused all of these effects.”

Harris’ forthcoming proposal to crack down on price gouging sounds like a “euphemism” for “price controls,” Antoni added.

Harris will also call on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general to probe companies that are thought to be ripping off consumers by raising prices to pad their profits, according to The Hill. Additionally, Harris will propose to have the government intervene against corporate mergers and acquisitions that she contends would further allow a small number of companies to milk consumers for even more profit.

The Harris campaign is reportedly trying to distance the vice president from President Joe Biden and certain aspects of his record, but Harris’ plan to blame corporate greed for price increases mimics Biden’s rhetoric on surging gasoline prices, for example.

The Friday speech will likely be the first time that Harris offers some level of specificity on how she would govern if elected to the nation’s highest office. She has been the de facto Democratic nominee for several weeks, but she has yet to partake in an extended interview or press conference to answer questions about her governing vision or release a platform.

Harris has endorsed a multitude of left-wing policy positions over her career in government, and her campaign has issued anonymous statements to the press indicating that she has backed off of some of those positions. Harris herself has not yet come out to clarify herself that she no longer supports policies like banning fracking.

The Harris campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.