Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign announced Wednesday that she will propose a federal ban on “corporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries,” CNBC reported.
Harris is expected to make the announcement at an economy-focused speech on Friday in Raleigh, N.C. when she plans to outline her agenda targeting big companies maintaining high costs for consumer staples.
“There’s a big difference between fair pricing in competitive markets, and excessive prices unrelated to the costs of doing business,” the Harris campaign said in a statement. “Americans can see that difference in their grocery bills.”
The Democratic candidate’s shift to blame high prices on corporate America are similar to what the Biden administration has pursued for years — targeting corporate consolidation and price gouging, including encouraging more competition in the meat industry and this year’s Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit attempting to block the merger of two major grocery retailers, Kroger and Albertsons, the New York Times reported.
Although Harris’ campaign didn’t delve into the specifics of how a price gouging ban could be enforced or which specific corporate behaviors could potentially be outlawed, they did claim that the vice president would work to enforce the federal ban within her first 100 days.
She will do so by “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 campaign said.
Harris in the speech is also expected to announce measures to revive the Child Tax Credit, expand the housing supply to address rising costs, and pursue limits on prescription drug pricing, according to The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein.