It didn’t take lengthy after Vice President Kamala Harris introduced her plans to deal with company “worth 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 “worth gouging” on meals, the former president wrote on Fact Social, “Kamala will implement SOVIET Type Value Controls,” one among a number of insurance policies he claimed would make inflation “100 instances WORSE.”
The Republican Nationwide Committee joined in, sharing the New York Publish’s Saturday headline “Kamunism” on X with the caption, “Comrade Kamala.”
It isn’t clear precisely what would depend as worth gouging underneath Harris’ proposed federal ban.
However Harris made clear she agrees with those economists who’ve discovered that some companies, fairly than merely elevating costs in response to a spike in demand relative to present provide, have taken benefit of market circumstances to pad their earnings 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.) introduced legislation proscribing how pharmacy profit managers (PBMs), a intermediary business that negotiates prescription drug costs for insurance coverage, can function. The invoice, which now has the help of 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats, would require PBMs to cost insurance coverage the identical quantity PBMs reimburse pharmacies, and move alongside to insurance coverage any reductions they negotiate with pharmacies.
Grassley is a longtime critic of PBMs’ and pharmaceutical corporations’ pricing practices, going as far as to accuse some corporations of worth gouging. “As a number one advocate for reducing drug costs within the U.S. Senate, I’ve hauled Massive Pharma and pharmacy profit supervisor executives earlier than Congress, led a two-year bipartisan investigation into insulin price-gouging, and superior bipartisan reforms to decrease the price of insulin and plenty of different prescribed drugs,” Grassley wrote in an October 2022 op-ed within the Iowa Metropolis Press-Citizen.
He sounds a complete lot like Harris, who said on Friday, “I’ll decrease the price of insulin and prescribed drugs for everybody together with your help, not solely our seniors and demand transparency from the middlemen who function between Massive Pharma and the insurance coverage corporations, who use opaque practices to lift your drug costs and revenue off your want for medication.”
There are likewise various 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 Special 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 corporations, has enabled companies to directly squeeze unbiased cattle ranchers with decrease buy costs, after which cost shoppers increased and better costs in supermarkets.
“For years, the hole has widened between the worth paid to cattle producers for his or her high-quality American merchandise and the worth of beef on the grocery retailer,” Rounds stated on the time. “In the meantime, the 4 largest beef packers, who management 85 % of our beef processing capability, have loved report earnings. This has resulted in a median of practically 17,000 cattle ranchers going out of enterprise annually since 1980.”
Harris alluded to related dynamics when she lamented that the worth of “floor beef is up 50%. Lots of the huge meals corporations are seeing their highest earnings in 20 years. And whereas many grocery chains move alongside these financial savings, others nonetheless aren’t.”
“We’ll assist the meals business turn out to be extra aggressive, as a result of I consider competitors is the lifeblood of our financial system,” she added. “Extra competitors means decrease costs for you and your households.”
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 observe report of grocery consolidation in our state doesn’t bode properly for Alaskans’ meals safety, affordability, and our devoted workforce,” the pair wrote.
When the FTC sued to dam the merger in February, Murkowski celebrated the choice. “This announcement will come as a reduction to numerous Alaskans,” she stated. “From the potential for even increased grocery costs to longer-term retailer closures, there have been simply too many unknowns and uncertainties for this merger to maneuver ahead.”
