Vice President Kamala Harris laid out details for her economic agenda on Friday after announcing plans to introduce price controls to ease the pain of inflation.
The Harris campaign calls it “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries–setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.”
The plan expands on efforts by the Biden administration to blame inflation on corporate greed. But economists are weary of the move. Former investment banker Carol Roth told the Daily Wire that the policy could devastate the food industry.
Writing in the Washington Post, economics columnist Catherine Rampell said, “It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is,” saying it could lead to “shortages, black markets and hoarding.”
But Harris’ plan has some advocates. Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) posted on X, “A handful of big corporations control the food industry, and they’re keeping prices high because they know they can.” She added, “Democrats are calling them out and forcing them to bring down costs.”