US Vice President Kamala Harris will call for a federal ban on food and grocery price gouging as part of a broader set of proposals aimed at reducing consumer costs, her campaign said in a preview of her first political speech. his nascent presidential candidacy.
The Democratic candidate promises to target price gouging and price fixing in her first 100 days in office, along with other measures to ease the burden of high prices that have weighed on American families and contributed to many voters’ low ratings for President Joe Biden. management of the economy.
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Harris plans to direct the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies to investigate and penalize “large corporations” that violate the rules and to find other ways to address price fixing and other anticompetitive practices in the food and grocery industries, her campaign said in end. Wednesday night.
While price controls have a checkered history in the US, Harris’ team is working to quickly add some proposals to the Biden administration’s achievements and goals, which are at the center of her campaign agenda. She will also detail plans to cut prescription drug and housing costs in an economic speech during a visit to Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday.
Former President Donald Trump made inflation, which spiked early in the Biden administration as the Covid-19 crisis raged, a centerpiece of his argument that he should be returned to the White House. The Republican candidate and his allies cite Democratic spending programs as a source of rising prices for food, gasoline and many other items.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more: Harris Will Face the Same Old GOP Inflation Playbook
While Harris understands that “price fluctuations are normal in free markets,” her campaign stated that there is “a big difference between fair prices in competitive markets and excessive prices unrelated to the costs of doing business.”
Americans, the campaign added, “can see that difference in their grocery bills” as prices have remained high even as companies’ costs have stabilized and their profits have remained high.
Harris, in her speech, will specifically highlight the highly consolidated meat industry, calling its processing intermediaries “particularly egregious” price-setters, with a history of having illegally controlled prices.
She also plans to instruct her administration to carefully examine proposed mergers between large food companies, with an emphasis on considering whether they will result in higher food prices for consumers. That work would include continuing to examine the proposed merger between Kroger Co. and Albertsons Cos., which faces challenges from the FTC and several states.
Harris’ campaign argues that her proposals “stand in stark contrast” to Trump’s economic agenda, which it says would “increase inflation and costs for middle-class families” by imposing tariffs on imports of domestic goods, including food products.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
