AP Photo/Matt Rourke
It’s frustrating that Kamala Harris hasn’t been interviewed since she ripped the 2024 Democratic nomination from Joe Biden, thanks to the combined efforts of donors, Nancy Pelosi and the party bosses. However, we can also see why her campaign keeps her away from the media. She’s an atrocious candidate, and if this is how she’s going to respond when someone calls her an extreme leftist—you can bet her team will keep her in the bunker for a while longer.
This Washington Post headline couldn’t be more appropriate or hilarious: “When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?” Catherine Rampell did not mince words when Harris rolled out a Soviet-style proposal to combat supposed price-gouging at the grocery stores:
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Philip Melanchthon Wegmann @PhilipWegmann
News: Harris to propose “federal ban on corporate price-gouging” on groceries and “impose stiff penalties in the food industry,” campaign announces.
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Mark Hemingway @Heminator
Kamala Harris is literally proposing price controls on food. This is literally what the Soviets did and the results will be scarcity and higher costs.
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It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.
At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat. (There’s a reason narrower “price gouging” laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices.
That’s because, among other things, the legislation would ban companies from offering lower prices to a big customer such as Costco than to Joe’s Corner Store, which means quantity discounts are in trouble. Worse, it would require public companies to publish detailed internal data about costs, margins, contracts and their future pricing strategies. Posting cost and pricing plans publicly is a fantastic way for companies to collude to keep prices higher — all facilitated by the government.
Yet, that’s where we’re heading if we elect Harris-Walz, as they attack JD Vance and the GOP for being “weird.”
