Vice President Kamala Harris desires to tackle excessive grocery costs.
On Friday, Harris’ marketing campaign launched new particulars of its financial coverage plan forward of a marketing campaign speech in North Carolina, they usually largely centered on reducing prices for Individuals battling inflation.
A key part of her plan was a “first-ever federal ban” on value gouging for groceries and meals. Value gouging, during which firms and companies increase costs on items to extreme ranges, is one thing President Joe Biden and lots of Democratic lawmakers have criticized — and the Federal Commerce Fee has launched investigations into excessive grocery costs, as properly.
Harris’ reality sheet said that she plans to implement this ban in her first 100 days in workplace and can direct the FTC to penalize firms that don’t adjust to it.
“Value fluctuations are regular in free markets, however Vice President Harris acknowledges there’s a large distinction between honest pricing and the extreme costs unrelated to the prices of doing enterprise that Individuals have seen within the meals and grocery business,” the very fact sheet on the plan mentioned.
Harris can be set to announce plans to push for restoring the kid tax credit score and provides dad and mom $6,000 for his or her kid’s first yr of life, together with different efforts to decrease housing and drug prices.
Democratic lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren have beforehand launched laws to handle company value gouging. In February, for instance, Warren joined a few of her Democratic colleagues in reintroducing the Value Gouging Prevention Act of 2024, which might permit the FTC to implement a federal ban on “extreme value will increase,” per the press launch.
“These excessive costs you are seeing on the grocery retailer? They don’t seem to be simply inflation,” Warren wrote on X on Thursday. “A handful of massive companies management the meals business, they usually’re holding costs excessive as a result of they know they’ll. Democrats are calling them out and forcing them to deliver down prices.”
Nonetheless, the concept has confronted sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers. GOP Sen. Rick Scott launched a press release on Thursday that Harris’ plan ought to “terrify each American” and known as a ban on value gouging “large authorities on steroids—the place Washington bureaucrats stick their arms into American companies and say what they’ll and may’t promote a product for.”
Moreover, Trump blasted Harris’ financial platforms throughout a Wednesday speech in North Carolina: “Does anybody right here really feel richer beneath Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe than you have been through the Trump administration? Is something inexpensive beneath Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe?”
Friday’s announcement is essentially the most detailed voters have gotten on Harris’ financial platform to this point.
Harris will possible present extra particulars on her financial plans subsequent week on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago. She has additionally agreed to debate Trump on September 10, when the 2 candidates will possible conflict over financial insurance policies.
Are you battling excessive grocery costs? What financial considerations do you’ve got heading into the election? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.
