WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris plans to propose the first federal ban on “corporate price gouging in the food and grocery industries,” his campaign announced Wednesday.
“There is a big difference between fair prices in competitive markets and excessive prices it is not related to the costs of doing business,” Harris’ campaign said in a statement. “Americans can see this difference in their grocery bills.”
The proposed ban is part of a broader plan economic policy platform which the Democratic presidential candidate plans to unveil Friday at a campaign rally in battleground North Carolina.
Harris will also promise that, if elected president, she will direct her administration to increase scrutiny of potential mergers between major supermarkets and food producers, “specifically due to the risk that the proposed merger will increase food prices for consumers,” she said. your campaign.
This package of regulatory proposals is one of the Harris campaign’s first efforts to outline an economic platform independent of the President. Joe Bidenagenda.
Before Biden abruptly dropped out of the race in July and endorsed Harris, he spent more than a year campaigning for re-election and blaming corporate greed for inflation-driven consumer prices.
However, Harris’ plan still fits firmly into Biden’s overall approach to regulation, which has prioritized consumer protections in a variety of industries and processed to block several massive corporate mergers.
In March, the White House launched the Strike Force against Unfair and Illegal Prices, a joint initiative between the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
On Friday, Harris will highlight the meat industry, saying that “rising meat prices have been responsible for much of Americans’ higher food bills, even as meat processing companies have posted record profits in the wake of the pandemic.” , according to his campaign statement.
The Democratic presidential candidate will also introduce proposals aimed at reducing consumer costs in two other sectors where companies have aggressively exercised their price-setting powers: prescription drugs and housing.
Harris’ speech will come two days after her opponent, the former president donald trumpgave your economic policy speech in North Carolina, where he blamed Harris for the high price of consumer goods.
“You are paying the price for [Harris’] liberal extremism at the gas pump, at the supermarket counter and on your mortgage bill,” Trump said in Asheville.
Nearly a month into her campaign, Harris has already erased Trump’s lead over Biden in national and state polls.
But Trump still maintains his long-standing advantage over Democrats when it comes to which candidate voters believe would be best for the economy.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
