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Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will call on Congress to pass a federal ban on price gouging as part of her economic platform to lower grocery prices and everyday costs.
That action, to be announced during a speech in North Carolina, is among others she will take in her first 100 days in office to lower high grocery costs, according to a campaign official granted anonymity to discuss policy ahead of an official announcement.
Elevated everyday costs have plagued the Biden-Harris administration since Americans’ grocery bills spiked during the pandemic. Harris is hoping to capitalize on new data this week that showed slowing food inflation. Her plans to bring down grocery prices are a key part of broader plans to lower costs for Americans that she’ll announce Friday, the campaign official said.
But even with some promising recent polling, most major voter surveys show President Joe Biden and Harris well behind former President Donald Trump on the economy. Harris has tried to level-set with voters about the pain of high food costs in recent campaign speeches, something progressive and battleground-district Democrats on Capitol Hill have said they wish Biden would have addressed earlier in his presidency. Republicans have blasted Democrats over high food prices for years, arguing it’s their own policies that’s fueling food inflation.
Harris’ proposals show how she would expand Biden’s focus on price gouging and food costs, according to the plans detailed by her campaign. In addition to her push for the first-ever federal ban on price gouging by food corporations, she would also direct the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to investigate and levy penalties on food companies that violate the federal ban, the campaign official said.
Harris is also set to argue that Trump’s plans, including threats to slap new, broad tariffs on U.S. imports, will only drive up costs for food and other everyday items, the campaign official said.
“Kamala Harris can’t hide from her disastrous record of skyrocketing inflation, resulting in a 20 percent increase in prices since she took office,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said. “Americans are struggling under the Biden-Harris economy, and now she wants to gaslight them into believing her bald-faced lies. She has no shame and ultimately she can’t hide from all the hurt she has caused every American because they feel it every single day,” Cheung added.
Presidents have limited power to quickly drive down the costs of groceries, given the complexity of food supply chains rattled by inflation. As supply chains have eased in recent months, Democrats, especially progressives on Capitol Hill, have blasted food companies for not passing those savings onto consumers. Hill progressives have also called on Biden to exert more executive powers to direct the FTC and other agencies to crack down on price gouging — something Harris will say she is willing to do.
Harris will argue she wants to give the FTC more authority to crack down on price-fixing and other tactics. Under Biden, White House officials have argued that FTC Commissioner Lina Khan is already doing what can be done to curtail unfair practices.
Harris’ call for a federal ban on price gouging mirrors legislation from Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and vulnerable incumbents Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), among others. The legislation has been stalled in Congress amid GOP opposition.
Similar to Biden in recent years, Harris on Friday will also argue that the small handful of corporations that control the U.S. meat supply have driven up consumer prices unfairly since the pandemic, according to the campaign official.
Biden’s former top economic adviser Brian Deese was the main driver behind steps the president took to target big meat companies. Deese is now advising Harris as she readies her own economic plans.
Harris will also say Friday she will continue a Biden-Harris administration initiative to help small businesses compete in the meat industry, which has invested billions of dollars into the effort.
Harris will also lean into her experience cracking down on corporate greed as California’s attorney general. She’ll more aggressively investigate and prosecute price-fixing through meat supply chains, and direct her administration to take new steps to crack down on unfair mergers that could inflate food prices, according to the campaign official. That follows dozens of cases in recent years alleging price-fixing by major meat companies and the FTC’s ongoing challenge of the largest proposed supermarket merger in U.S. history, between Kroger and Albertsons.
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