Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday promised to control food inflation, an issue that has dogged Democrats throughout the campaign season, by threatening penalties on companies that raise prices unfairly.
Rolling out her economic plan during a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Harris said her first-ever ban on food price gouging would come with penalties for “opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules,” while supporting smaller food businesses.
Her plan would “secure new authority” to allow the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to investigate and penalize companies that violate the ban.
It’s not clear how a price-gouging ban would work, but the plan says Harris wants to “set clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive profits on food and groceries.”
She’s also promising to build on USDA’s funding for expanding meat processing capacity.
Overall, Harris said her plan would increase competition in the food industry which could yield lower prices for American consumers.
“When I am elected president, I will make it a top priority to bring down costs and increase economic security for all Americans,” Harris said. “As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans, like the cost of food.”
Many economists panned her price-gouging ban even before she formally announced it. Jason Furman, who chaired President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, told the New York Times her proposal was “not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality,”
The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimated that other proposals in her economic plan, including expansions of the child tax credit and earned income tax credit, and new subsidies for health insurance and housing, would increase the federal budget deficit by $1.7 trillion over 10 years.
The Consumer Price Index for at-home food rose 3.5% in 2020 and 2021, before jumping 11.4% in 2022 and 5% in 2023. Since July 2023, the index for grocery prices has only increased by 1.1%. Republicans note that even if inflation has moderated, consumers are paying far more for food than they did in 2020.
One reason prices jumped was supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other events, like the avian influenza, war in Ukraine and shrinking cattle production have also influenced prices.
Despite supply chains recovering after the pandemic, Harris said food prices are still too high, with a loaf of bread costing 50% more than before the pandemic. She said big food companies are seeing high profits, but only some grocery chains are passing savings on to consumers.
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She pointed to her experience as California attorney general where she “went after” companies that illegally inflated prices on medication and electronics. She said this resulted in a $1 billion win for consumers.
“So believe me as president I will go after the bad actors,” Harris said.
Harris also attacked former President Donald Trump for his proposal to impose across-the-board tariffs on imported products. She described the tariff increase as a national sales tax and said it would cost families thousands of dollars a year.
Industry groups including the Meat Institute, National Chicken Council and the Food Marketing Association, which represents major grocers, have pushed back on Harris’ proposals.
“Chicken prices are largely affected by supply and demand, by major input costs like corn, soybeans, energy, packaging, transportation, and by fiscal policy and burdensome government regulations. Not price gouging,” said NCC Interim President Gary Kushner in a statement Thursday.
Republicans accused Harris of proposing price controls. “If you think things are expensive now, they will get 100 times WORSE if Kamala gets four years as President. Under her plan, Kamala will implement SOVIET Style Price Controls,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
A Trump-Vance campaign press release was headlined: “Comrade Kamala Goes Full Communist.”
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