An Axios reporter rushed to the defense of Vice President Kamala Harris’ heavily criticized proposal to control grocery prices on Tuesday, but her article was hit by a community note on X that provided some important context.
Axios Markets Correspondent Emily Peck wrote, “One of Kamala Harris’ most controversial policy proposals is a ban on grocery price gouging — critics are conflating the idea with Soviet-style price controls, and calling the plan ‘Kamunism.’” Peck added, “If banning price gouging is communist, then the U.S. went Marxist long ago. Most of us live in states that already have bans in place.”
Axios also posted a link to the article on X with the caption, “Don’t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work.”
X slapped a community note on Axios’ post, pointing out that the same author called it “price controls” when the U.K. considered a short-term policy in 2023 to push retailers to agree to standardized prices on certain groceries like milk and bread. In 2022, another Axios writer, Matt Phillips, referred to the G-7’s pledge to limit how much Russia could profit from oil sales as “price controls.”
Don’t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work https://t.co/tyPKx1nayt
— Axios (@axios) August 20, 2024
Harris promised last week that her administration would punish companies for “price-gouging” as food prices have increased due to high inflation rates over the past three years. Bread and ground beef have risen in cost by around 50% since before the pandemic when Donald Trump was in the White House. Dairy products such as milk, cheese, and butter have also jumped more than 30% in price since 2020, according to Yahoo Finance. Eggs are up 54%, and cereal has gone up 28% on average across the country.
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Peck argued that a Harris administration would likely attempt to expand on existing state laws that seek to prevent large companies from hiking prices on essential items during emergencies, such as a hurricane. She wrote that Harris has not provided much detail on her plan, which, Peck claimed, has “led to wild speculation about what the plan could mean.” The Axios reporter also argued in favor of Harris’ proposal, writing, “One advantage of a national ban is that the federal government would have more power to go after big global corporations that are hard to pursue at the state level.”
Trump referred to the Democratic nominee’s plan as “communist,” saying last week that such a proposal would “have the exact opposite impact and effect and it leads to food shortages, rationing, hunger, dramatically more inflation.”
Even the Left-leaning Washington Post ran an op-ed blasting Harris for the price control plan.
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“At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat,” Catherine Rampell wrote. “(There’s a reason narrower ‘price gouging’ laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices.”
