The vice president is doubling down on “Kamunism”.
The Kamala Harris campaign released an ad Tuesday highlighting the Democratic nominee’s widely panned push for a national ban on purported price gouging — despite estimates that the plan will push the US trillions of dollars further into the red.
“We all know costs are too high. But while corporations are gouging families, [Republican nominee Donald] Trump is focused on giving them tax cuts,” intones the narrator of the spot, titled “Forward,” before adding the promise that Harris would “make groceries more affordable by cracking down on price gouging.”
Harris unveiled a suite of economic proposals on Aug. 16, including a “federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries” — though with few specifics about the restriction would actually work.
Some Democrats had previously introduced federal legislation to restrict so-called price gouging by granting the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general broad power to target companies.
Dozens of states already have price gouging bans on the books, but those policies are usually tethered to statewide emergencies, such as hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Critics, including many Republicans, accused Harris of pursuing statist price controls, which have a long history of causing product shortages and other economic shocks where it has been tried.
“Price controls do not eliminate inflation,” Manhattan Institute senior economic fellow Brian Riedl told The Post at the time. “They only delay it, with huge shortages in the meantime.”
Following backlash over the proposal, some Democratic lawmakers reportedly quietly tried to reassure their allies that Harris’ plan won’t be able to pass Congress.
According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, consumer prices have jumped 21% since February of 2020.
Conservative economists have blamed high federal deficits coupled with easy monetary policy during and immediately after the pandemic for causing inflation, while the Harris-Biden administration has blamed pandemic-related supply chain disruptions as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for increases in global food and fuel prices.
In addition to the price gouging ban, Harris also proposed child tax credits of up to $6,000 for lower and middle-income families, up to $25,000 in “down-payment assistance” for first-time homebuyers, a $2,000 out-of-pocket expenses cap for prescription drugs, and more.
