It didn’t take lengthy after Vice President Kamala Harris introduced her plans to deal with company “price gouging” on Friday for Donald Trump to accuse her of proposing Soviet-style communism.
In an obvious reference to Harris’ admittedly obscure plan to forbid “price gouging” on meals, the previous president wrote on Fact Social, “Kamala will implement SOVIET Style Price Controls,” one in all a number of insurance policies he claimed would make inflation “100 times WORSE.”
The Republican Nationwide Committee joined in, sharing the New York Submit’s Saturday headline “Kamunism” on X with the caption, “Comrade Kamala.”
It’s not clear precisely what would depend as worth gouging beneath Harris’ proposed federal ban.
However Harris made clear she agrees with these economists who’ve discovered that some companies, moderately than merely elevating costs in response to a spike in demand relative to present provide, have taken benefit of market circumstances to pad their income with increased costs. And in choose industries, Harris and these economists contend, dominant companies have discovered methods to muscle out competitors such that there is no such thing as a pure course-correction mechanism when this worth gouging happens.
What’s extra, Harris singled out two industries, beef and prescribed drugs, which have attracted scrutiny from loads of Republicans.
In December, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) launched laws limiting how pharmacy profit managers (PBMs), a intermediary business that negotiates prescription drug costs for insurance policy, can function. The invoice, which now has the help of 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats, would require PBMs to cost insurance policy the identical quantity PBMs reimburse pharmacies, and go alongside to insurance policy any reductions they negotiate with pharmacies.
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Grassley is a longtime critic of PBMs’ and pharmaceutical firms’ pricing practices, going as far as to accuse some firms of worth gouging. “As a leading advocate for lowering drug prices in the U.S. Senate, I’ve hauled Big Pharma and pharmacy benefit manager executives before Congress, led a two-year bipartisan investigation into insulin price-gouging, and advanced bipartisan reforms to lower the cost of insulin and many other prescription drugs,” Grassley wrote in an October 2022 op-ed within the Iowa Metropolis Press-Citizen.
He sounds an entire lot like Harris, who stated on Friday, “I’ll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone with your support, not only our seniors and demand transparency from the middlemen who operate between Big Pharma and the insurance companies, who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off your need for medicine.”
There are likewise plenty of Republican lawmakers who’ve advocated for federal intervention to cease worth gouging within the beef business. Grassley joined Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in February 2023 to reintroduce the Meat Packing Particular Investigator Act, which might create a brand new particular investigator within the Division of Agriculture to crack down on meatpacking giants’ anticompetitive practices.
The trio argued that focus within the meatpacking business, which is now dominated by simply 4 firms, has enabled companies to without delay squeeze unbiased cattle ranchers with decrease buy costs, after which cost shoppers increased and better costs in supermarkets.
“For years, the gap has widened between the price paid to cattle producers for their high-quality American products and the price of beef at the grocery store,” Rounds stated on the time. “Meanwhile, the four largest beef packers, who control 85 percent of our beef processing capacity, have enjoyed record profits. This has resulted in an average of nearly 17,000 cattle ranchers going out of business each year since 1980.”
Harris alluded to related dynamics when she lamented that the worth of “ground beef is up 50%. Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades. And while many grocery chains pass along these savings, others still aren’t.”
“We will help the food industry become more competitive, because I believe competition is the lifeblood of our economy,” she added. “More competition means lower prices for you and your families.”
Some Republicans have even shared Harris’ concern about lack of competitors within the grocery store business.
Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, each Republicans, wrote to the Federal Commerce Fee in September to encourage strict scrutiny of a possible merger between the grocery store conglomerates Kroger and Albertsons.
“The track record of grocery consolidation in our state does not bode well for Alaskans’ food security, affordability, and our dedicated workforce,” the pair wrote.
When the FTC sued to dam the merger in February, Murkowski celebrated the choice. “This announcement will come as a relief to countless Alaskans,” she stated. “From the potential for even higher grocery prices to longer-term store closures, there were just too many unknowns and uncertainties for this merger to move forward.”
